About this work
The scene arrests you immediately: a lone, massively built buffalo bull holding his ground on the open prairie, encircled by a pack of pale wolves. The bull is battered but unbroken — some wolves recline at a distance, exhausted from earlier attacks, while others prowl the perimeter, looking for an opening. The White Wolves depicted here were considered "the most numerous and formidable" of all wolf species on the American prairies. The composition is wide and lateral, emphasizing the vastness of the grassland and the isolation of the solitary animal at its center. The palette is spare — tawny earth, bleached grass, the dirty white of the wolves — which only sharpens the tension. This is not romanticized wilderness spectacle; it is something closer to natural reportage, drawn with a steady hand and a clear eye.
*Buffalo Hunt, White Wolves Attacking a Buffalo Bull* is Plate 10 from Catlin's *North American Indian Portfolio*, published in 1844.
The London edition was published by Day & Haghe and issued as a deluxe hand-colored lithograph. The image originates from a moment Catlin witnessed firsthand during his frontier travels: while riding with hunting companions, he spotted the wolves surrounding the wounded bull, and later wrote of finding some "reclining, to gain breath, whilst others were sneaking about...in anxiety for a renewal of the attack."
When Catlin first issued the *Portfolio* in 1844, his animated, colorful, sympathetic views finally filled a void of imagery, allowing Europeans and Americans to visualize the people and landscapes of whom they had only read. Plate 10 stands apart within that series — it is the only plate without a human figure, making the drama of the natural world its sole subject.
This print belongs in a room that can hold a little stillness and a little tension at once — a library, a study, a hallway with strong natural light. It was selected as one of the greatest images from Catlin's record for the *Portfolio*, conceived to reach as wide an audience as possible, and functions as both a work of art of high quality and a memorial to a vanished world. It draws the viewer who values witness over decoration — art that came from somewhere real, made by someone who was actually there.
