Indian Guide Trying the Ford
Artist
Alfred Jacob Miller
(American, 1810 - 1874)
Datec. 1840
Mediumoil on canvas
Dimensions20 x 24 inches (50.8 x 61 cm)
Frame: 23 3/8 × 27 1/2 × 1 1/2 inches (59.4 × 69.9 × 3.8 cm)
Frame: 23 3/8 × 27 1/2 × 1 1/2 inches (59.4 × 69.9 × 3.8 cm)
Credit LineBequest of H.J. Lutcher Stark, 1965
Object number31.34.4
ClassificationsPaintings
DescriptionLater version of subject.Label TextMiller depicted an Indian scouting a route for a party of travelers or hunters. At a river, the guide had to find a shallow place where they could cross, or ford, the water. Miller painted the guide resolutely looking forward. The horse, who looks back plaintively toward the viewer, conveys the only sense of trepidation. Miller painted an earlier version of this work as a field sketch during his 1837 journey to the West.
ProvenanceCharles Miller; (Edward Eberstadt & Sons, New York, New York)[1]; 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. “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)
On View
On view
Subject/Subject