This painting centers on a Snake Indian smoking. He is unarmed, having piled his weapons nearby, and sits in a relaxed posture. His left hand is draped familiarly over a dog and in his right hand he holds a pipe. Joan Troccoli suggests that this painting is likely a dramatized illustration for a passage from Alexander Pope’s Essay on Man, not a specific portrait of a Snake Indian and his canine companion. (Troccoli, 31)
