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A man with pale white skin sits and a man with light brown skin stands in front of a cave-like, rocky outcropping in this vertical portrait painting. The light-skinned man closer to us has dark brown hair, and the light falls more strongly on him. He sits propped on or against a rock with his body angled to our left, and he looks off into the distance in that direction. He wears a scarlet-red overcoat, a white waistcoat, and moccasins. What appears to be an animal skin painted on the underside with red, tan, and black geometric patterns is tied around his chest and falls over his left arm, on our right. With that hand, he holds a musket like a walking stick. He also holds a black cap ornamented with beads and feathers on his other knee. The man with brown skin stands in shadow behind the other man, to our left. His body faces us, and he looks at the seated man. A dark cloak encircles his shoulders and is gathered around his waist. A strap crosses his bare chest and the strap, bracelets, and a feathered headdress seem to be beaded. Large gold rings curve from his earlobes up over his ears. A puff of smoke emerges from the top of the long, painted stick he holds, suggesting it is a pipe. He holds his left hand, on our right, at his chest, and points subtly to our left, perhaps to the landscape seen through a break in the rocky outcropping. There, in front of a waterfall in the distance, a small group of people with light brown skin gather around a camp fire in front of a tent-like structure.

Colonel Guy Johnson and Karonghyontye (Captain David Hill), 1776

Benjamin West

West Building, Main Floor — Gallery 62

Hostilities between North American colonists and Britain were boiling over in the 1770s when Benjamin West painted this double portrait. The British wanted to ensure the loyalty of the Mohawk people, the easternmost tribe of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederacy), in case of war.

British Colonel Guy Johnson commissioned the painting while in London with Mohawk Chief Karonghyontye in 1775. It commemorates Johnson’s promotion to British superintendent of the “Six Nations” (as the British called the Iroquois Confederacy). Karonghyontye was a prominent leader with a key role in diplomatic conversations. But West paints him gazing at Johnson from the shadows, a sign of their unequal alliance.

Dive deeper

Information on this painting can be found in the Gallery publication American Paintings of the Eighteenth Century, pages 321-328, which is available as a free PDF.

Object Data

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 202 x 138 cm (79 1/2 x 54 5/16 in.)

framed: 222.6 x 160 x 9.5 cm (87 5/8 x 63 x 3 3/4 in.)

Credit Line

Andrew W. Mellon Collection

Accession Number

1940.1.10

Artists / Makers

Benjamin West (painter) American, 1738 - 1820

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
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Detail Information

Provenance

Ethel Dixon-Brown [d. c. 1950], Henfield, Sussex;[1] (Sotheby's, London, 7 December 1927, no. 54, as a portrait of Sir Joseph Banks); bought by (Frank T. Sabin, London);[2] sold 27 November 1936 to (M. Knoedler & Co., New York);[3] sold 21 January 1937 to The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh; gift 1940 to NGA.

[1] "Miss E. Dixon Brown, Martyn Lodge, Henfield, Sussex" is identified as the pre-sale owner in the records of the firm of Frank T. Sabin, compiled in 1927 (letter from Sidney Sabin dated 6 June 1991, in NGA curatorial files). This is confirmed by a label on the back of the painting. The owner's name has been misread in the past as E. Dina Brown. She was the daughter of the Reverend Dixon Dixon Brown [1826-1901] and his wife Georgina Elizabeth Dixon Brown [d. 1914]; see Burke's Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry, 17th ed., London, 1952: 278-279. Her death date was provided by Irene Dixon-Brown, her nephew's wife (letter of 15 July 1991, in NGA curatorial files). The earlier history of the painting is unknown.

[2] Sotheby and Co., Catalogue of Valuable Pictures by Old Masters of the Italian School; Portraits of the Dutch and English Schools; Pictures and Drawings of the English and French Schools, London, 1927: 14; annotated copy, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven.

[3] The date of the sale is recorded in a stockbook owned by Sabin Galleries, Ltd., London (letter from Sidney F. Sabin dated 6 June 1991, in NGA curatorial files). According to M. Knoedler & Co., the painting was consigned to them in October 1936 {letter from Melissa De Medeiros, Knoedler Librarian, 28 May 1991, in NGA curatorial files).

Associated Names

Dixon-Brown, Ethel
Knoedler & Company, M.
Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, The A.W.
Sabin, Frank T.
Sotheby's, London

Exhibition History

1938: Portraits of American Indians from Pocahontas to Sitting Bull, University Museum, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1938, uncatalogued, as Joseph Brant and Colonel Guy Johnson

1967: The Painter and the New World/ Le Peintre et le Nouveau Monde, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 1967, no. 85, as Colonel Guy Johnson and Chief Joseph Brant

1975: The European Vision of America, National Gallery of Art, Washington; Cleveland Museum of Art; Grand Palais, Paris, 1975-1977, no. 177, repro., as Colonel Guy Johnson

1984: Georgian Canada: Conflict and Culture, 1745-1820, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, 1984, no. 115, as Portrait of Colonel Guy Johnson

2013: American Adversaries: West and Copley in a Transatlantic World, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 2013-2014, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

Bibliography

1941: Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 213, no. 496, as Colonel Guy Johnson.

1942: Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 249, repro. 10, as Colonel Guy Johnson.

1944: Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. Masterpieces of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1944: 138, color repro., as Colonel Guy Johnson.

1949: Paintings and Sculpture from the Mellon Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1949 (reprinted 1953 and 1958): 131, repro., as Colonel Guy Johnson.

1956: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1956: 50, repro., as Colonel Guy Johnson.

1958: Hamilton, Milton W. "Joseph Brant - The Most Painted Indian." New York History 39, no. 2 (April 1958): 122-123.

1959: Bouton, Margaret. American Painting in the National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 1959 (Booklet Number One in Ten Schools of Painting in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.): 16, color repro., as Colonel Guy Johnson.

1959: Evans, Grose. Benjamin West and the Taste of His Times. Carbondale, Illinois, 1959: 46, 119 n. 53, pl. 33.

1963: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 218, repro., as Colonel Guy Johnson.

1966: Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 2:376, color repro., as Colonel Guy Johnson.

1967: Hamilton, Milton W. Sir William Johnson and the Indians of New York. Albany, 1967: 39, repro.

1968: Gandolfo, Giampaolo et al. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Great Museums of the World. New York, 1968: 14, 154-155, color repro.

1970: American Paintings and Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1970: 120, repro., as Colonel Guy Johnson.

1974: Parry, Ellwood C., III. The Image of the Indian and the Black Man in American Art, 1590-1900. New York, 1974: 31, repro. 33, 34.

1977: Dillenberger 1977, 23-24, pl. 13.

1978: King, Marian. Adventures in Art: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1978: 69, pl. 40, as Colonel Guy Johnson.

1980: American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1980: 256, repro., as Colonel Guy Johnson.

1980: Wilmerding, John. American Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1980: 9, 12, 40-41, no. 1, color repro., as Colonel Guy Johnson.

1981: Williams, William James. A Heritage of American Paintings from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1981: 40, color repro. 48, as Colonel Guy Johnson.

1984: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 370, no. 523, color repro., as Colonel Guy Johnson.

1986: Von Erffa and Staley 1986, 59 (color repro.), 523-525, no. 647.

1988: Wilmerding, John. American Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art. Rev. ed. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1988: no. 1, color repro., as Colonel Guy Johnson.

1991: King, J. C. H. "Woodlands Artifacts From the studio of Benjamin West, 1738-1820." American Indian Art Magazine 17, no. 1 (Winter 1991): 34-47, repro. 34, figure 1 (color).

1992: American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 377, repro., as Colonel Guy Johnson.

1995: Miles, Ellen G. American Paintings of the Eighteenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1995: 321-328, color repro. 323.

1998: Cheney, Liana de Girolami. “Peace." In Encyclopedia of Comparative Iconography: Themes Depicted in Works of Art. Edited by Helene E. Roberts. 2 vols. Chicago, 1998: 2:706

1998: Einhorn, Arthur and Thomas S. Abler. "Tattooed Bodies and Severed Auricles: Images of Native American Body Modification in the Art of Benjamin West." in American Indian Art Magazine. [Vol. 23, Number 4]. 1998: 43-47, repro. no. 5.

1998: Reinhardt, Leslie. "British and Indian Identities in a Picture by Benjamin West." Eighteenth Century Studies 31, no. 3 (1998): 283-305.

1999: Zuffi, Stefano and Francesca Castria, La peinture baroque. Translated from Italian by Silvia Bonucci and Claude Sophie Mazéas. Paris, 1999: 387, color repro.

2004: Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 290, no. 235, color repro.

2005: Muller, Kevin R. "Pelts and Power, Mohawks and Myth: Benjamin West's Portrait of Guy Johnson." Winterthur Portfolio 40, no. 1 (Spring 2005): 47-75, fig. 3.