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Source Description

Extracts from Alfred Jacob Miller’s original text, which accompanied his images of Native Americans, are included below for reference. "Hunters, after wounding the Buffalo and seeing him fall, sometimes alight from their horses and approach. In this case they have reckoned without their host:- the animal has again regained his feet and gives battle. One of them to escape his fury has thrown down his blanket, in order to have time to regain his saddle;- on this unlucky blanket, the Buffalo is expending his fury, under the pleasing delu-[sion] that he is pitching into somebody, and while so engaged, another shot is prepared for him which gives him his quietus." 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.

Scholar Source Context

Document identity
localId
24398
label
Buffalo Turning on His Pursuers
core
obj
dtoType
drawing
pageCount
3
Source metadata
id
24398
contentType
drawing
stage
normalized
title
Buffalo Turning on His Pursuers
description
Extracts from Alfred Jacob Miller’s original text, which accompanied his images of Native Americans, are included below for reference. "Hunters, after wounding the Buffalo and seeing him fall, sometimes alight from their horses and approach. In this case they have reckoned without their host:- the animal has again regained his feet and gives battle. One of them to escape his fury has thrown down his blanket, in order to have time to regain his saddle;- on this unlucky blanket, the Buffalo is expending his fury, under the pleasing delu-[sion] that he is pitching into somebody, and while so engaged, another shot is prepared for him which gives him his quietus." 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.
provenance
William T. Walters, Baltimore, 1858-1860, by commission; Henry Walters, Baltimore, 1894, by inheritance; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.
date
1858-1860
rightsUri
CC0
language
en
genreSpecific
Painting & Drawing
watercolors (paintings)
imageCount
3
pageCount
3
source
import
dimensions
units
cm
width
22.2
height
30.5
dimensionsRaw
H: 8 3/4 x W: 12 in. (22.2 x 30.5 cm)
Source extras
inscriptions
[Monogram] Lower left: AJMiller
med
watercolor on paper
creator_ids
4486
collection_ids
EAN
exhibition_ids
none
Page inventory
seq
1
type
photo
mediaId
7d93d89c18128fa4
hasOcr
no
hasDescription
no
seq
2
type
photo
mediaId
22fe5752b4c6b6d9
hasOcr
no
hasDescription
no
seq
3
type
photo
mediaId
c7e554d67893e6a5
hasOcr
no
hasDescription
no