Karl Bodmer, The Interior of the Hut of a Mandan Chief, 1843-44

During their stay at Fort Clark, Maximilian and Bodmer befriended Dipäuch, an old and respected Mandan leader. The lodge depicted in this tableau was Dipäuch’s home, and Bodmer was allowed to sketch its details in many visits over a period of several weeks.

The final scene was intended to show typical activities in Mandan homes, and in that regard, matches many descriptions Maximilian gave in his journals. “The man often smokes a pipe and at home is usually naked except for the breechcloth. The Mandan are hospitable when one visits them, and usually acquaintances are invited to visit them from time to time. One eats and smokes after one has sat down on a buffalo robe. The pipe goes around to the left.”

Bodmer, an observant draftsman, may also have referred to Maximilian’s description when experimenting with compositions. The only discrepancy may be the dogs, which total five in the print, but which Maximilian mentioned were scarce. These dogs, along with the vision robe and skull, were likely picturesque embellishments intended to attract European audiences. The light, which pours in from above and bathes the lodge’s inhabitants in its glow, while throwing the corners of their home into shadow, transforms the image from document to work of art.  – Brandon K. Ruud

Karl Bodmer was a little-known Swiss painter when he was chosen by Prince Maximilian of Prussia to accompany his voyage to America, in order to document in pictorial terms, the expedition. With the rest of Maximilian’s company, the two traveled among the Plains and Rockies from 1832 to 1834, a time when the area was still virtually unknown. They arrived in the West before acculturation had begun to change the lives of the Indians, and Bodmer, who was a protege of the great naturalist von Humboldt, brought a trained ethnologist’s eye to the task. The Bodmer/Maximilian collaboration produced a record of their expedition that is considered one of the finest and most complete documentations of the Plains Indians before the epidemics of the mid-19th century had decimated their numbers, and before European expansion had taken their lands. After the conclusion of the journey, Bodmer spent four years in Paris supervising the production of the aquatints made from his drawings. In contrast to other artist-explorers of the 19th century, such as George Catlin, Bodmer was well-trained in the classic European tradition. The work that he did in America is considered to be the high point of a distinguished career.