Indian Combat (1868): Art, History and Details

Indian Combat (1868) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Edmonia Lewis (American, c. 1844–1907).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

A spiraling composition with three intertwined figures, Indian Combat ranks as Edmonia Lewis’s most dynamic and complex creation. Although her Native American subjects typically exist in multiple versions, this example appears to be unique. Of Indigenous (Mississauga) and African American ancestry, Edmonia Lewis studied at Oberlin College and apprenticed with a sculptor in Boston before moving to Rome in 1866. Her sculptures were readily purchased by patrons on both sides of the Atlantic.

Object facts

• Title: Indian Combat
• Date: 1868
• Creator attribution: Edmonia Lewis (American, c. 1844–1907)
• Culture: United States
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: marble
• Dimensions: Overall: 76.2 x 48.3 x 36.5 cm (30 x 19 x 14 3/8 in.)
• Collection: American - Sculpture
• Department: American Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 2011.110

A detail from the museum

Growing up in her Indigenous community, Lewis went by a name that translates as "Wildfire."

Collection credit

American Painting and Sculpture Sundry Purchase Fund and Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Ausherman, Maria, Masters of Shape: The Lives and Art of American Women Sculptors. (Novato, CA: Goff Books, 2022).
• Wilder, Jesse Bryant, Art History for Dummies. 2nd edition. (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2022).
• "Teach to Learn," Cleveland Art 59 (May/June 2019).

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.