Ingmars Lindbergs
Director
Lot 108
A Hunkpapa Lakota drawing, attributed to Sitting Bull (Tatanka Yotanka, c.1831-1890)
9 December 2025, 12:00 PST
Los AngelesUS$20,000 - US$30,000
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Kim Jarand
Specialist, Head of Sale
A Hunkpapa Lakota drawing
Attributed to Sitting Bull (Tatanka Yotanka, c.1831-1890), depicting a warrior on horseback, presumably Sitting Bull, quirt in hand, counting coup or killing an enemy armed with a rifle, likely a Crow warrior, ink and colored pencil on paperboard, signed "Sitting Bull" lower center.
dimensions 8 1/4 x 12 1/4in
dimensions 8 1/4 x 12 1/4in
Footnotes
Provenance
Sheryl and James Grievo, Stockton, New Jersey
Skinner, Inc., The Mr. and Mrs. James Grievo Collection of Native American Art, Boston, 18 May, 2019, lot 6
Donald Ellis Gallery, Dundas and New York, inv. no. P4349
A Private Midwest Collector, acquired from the above
See Praus, Alexis A., A New Pictographic Autobiography of Sitting Bull; Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Volume 123, Number 6, 1955, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C., which includes thirteen plates showing illustrations by Sitting Bull commissioned by Captain Horace Quimby, Regimental Quartermaster at Fort Randall, Dakota Territories, while Sitting Bull was interred there in 1881-82. "Sitting Bull made three known pictographic autobiographies besides the one illustrated with this article. It is understandable that none of the Quimby specimens show encounters with white soldiers or civilians since Sitting Bull was a prisoner at the time with uncertain legal status." Ibid. p.3. Plate 6 fig. 12 bears a strong similarity to the present lot, with a Crow warrior being struck down by a warrior on horseback wearing a lengthy feather bonnet. Furthermore, the depiction of the horses in the Quimby group are closely aligned to the work on offer, particularly the depiction of the muzzles with prominent nostril and lips, and the rendition of the fetlocks.
See also Maurer, Evan M., Visions of the People: A Pictorial History of Plains Indian Life, 1992, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN, pp. 210-211, figs. 177-180, showing four drawings from a group of twenty-two collected by Lieutenant Wallace Tear during Sitting Bull's internment in 1881-82 (Catalog number NAA.MS1929B). "These four drawings were made by Sitting Bull at Fort Randall just one year after his surrender. They are selected from a book of twenty-two drawings known as the Smith Record, which illustrates and describes selected incidents in the great warrior's career, mostly against other Indians." Ibid. p.210. Much like the Quimby examples, these illustrations are on paper of similar dimensions as the present lot, with fig. 180 bearing a strong comparability to this artwork in terms of execution, composition and subject. "Sitting Bull's drawings are the slow, careful work of an unsure draftsman, but in several drawings like this one he took pains to depict a dark gray dappled horse that must have been a special favorite." Ibid. p.211
The Captain Quimby commissioned drawings were donated in 1947 to the Fort St. Joseph Historical Association Museum in Niles, Michigan (now the Fort St. Joseph Museum, part of the Niles History Center); while an online archive of these works is unavailable, a PDF of A New Pictographic Autobiography of Sitting Bull is available online at the Smithsonian Institution: https://repository.si.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/d140f842-7b01-46e7-8ebf-e32e57d68303/content
The complete set of Sitting Bull drawings collected by Lieutenant Tear during the same period can be viewed online at the Smithsonian Institution Online Visual Archives: https://sova.si.edu/record/naa-ms1929b/search?q=Sitting+Bull%2C+1831-1890&t=W&o=doc_position