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The Indian Certificate

Image source: The Walters Art Museum | CC0 1.0

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Date

1858-1860

Artist

Alfred Jacob Miller (1810-1874)

Collection

Walters Art Museum

Image Link

http://art.thewalters.org/detail/3384

Description

"The Sioux's recommendation (who wishes to officiate as a guide) is here being read by our Captain. The Indians in their intercourse with the whites have had sagacity to discover the value of certificates of good character, and procure such testimonials from those whom they have served in order to recommend themselves to others; preserving these papers with great care. It sometimes happens that the writer (knowing that the poor savage cannot read) gives him a character not at all favorable, in short, tells too much." A.J. Miller, extracted from "The West of Alfred Jacob Miller" (1837).
In July 1858 William T. Walters commissioned 200 watercolors at twelve dollars apiece from Baltimore born artist Alfred Jacob Miller. These paintings were each accompanied by a descriptive text, and were delivered in installments over the next twenty-one months and ultimately were bound in three albums. Transcriptions of field-sketches drawn during the 1837 expedition that Miller had undertaken to the annual fur-trader's rendezvous in the Green River Valley (in what is now western Wyoming), these watercolors are a unique record of the closing years of the western fur trade.
(Released under the GNU Free Documentation License)
Medium: watercolor on paper.
Credit line: Commissioned by William T. Walters, 1858-1860.

Image Licence

CC0 1.0

Image Credit

Image source: The Walters Art Museum

Location

Wyoming, USA

Country

Medium

Tags

Plains
Horses
People

Category

People & Society

Glossary
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© 2024 Watercolour World | Technology by The Museum Platform

© 2024 Watercolour World | Technology by The Museum Platform