Lord Stewart Shooting the Elk
Artist
Alfred Jacob Miller
(American, 1810 - 1874)
Datec. 1859
Mediumoil on mahogany panel
Dimensions17 3/4 x 23 7/8 inches (45.1 x 60.6 cm)
Frame: 20 1/4 × 26 1/4 × 1 3/4 inches (51.4 × 66.7 × 4.4 cm)
Frame: 20 1/4 × 26 1/4 × 1 3/4 inches (51.4 × 66.7 × 4.4 cm)
Credit LineBequest of H.J. Lutcher Stark, 1965
Object number31.34.5
ClassificationsPaintings
Label TextDuring their journey to the Rocky Mountains, Alfred Jacob Miller records Captain William Drummond Stewart, as he fires the final shot at the exhausted elk. Miller recorded several scenes of elk hunting and commented on its “nutritious meat.” This is how the artist describes the hunt: “Pressed by the hunters after a hard run, the Elk almost dead beaten has as a last resource leaped into a stream too shallow for him to swim, and this seals his fate; – the hunters evidently thinking that nothing but gunpowder will save their bacon."
ProvenancePossibly the picture commissioned by William C. Wait, account book, June 30, 1859 (as Shooting Elk, $35)[1]; (Edward Eberstadt & Sons, New York, New York)[2]; purchased February 10, 1958 by H.J. Lutcher Stark [1887-1965]; bequeathed September 2, 1965 to the Nelda C. and H.J. Lutcher Stark Foundation; accessioned to the Stark Museum of Art
| 1. Reynolds, Karen Dewees. Alfred Jacob Miller: Artist on the Oregon Trail. Fort Worth, TX: Amon Carter Museum, 1982. Includes Catalogue Raisonne by Karen Dewees Reynolds & William R. Johnston. p. 240 no. 128D.
| 2.. “We have been some ten or a dozen years amassing the rest of this collection from various individuals who were direct descendents[sic] of the pioneer artist himself.” (excerpt from a letter to HJLS from Charles Eberstadt dated November 26, 1957)
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