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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. Soon after passing Chimney Rock, the traveler saw Scott's Bluffs, a mound with the appearance of an "immense fortification with bastions, towers, battlements, and embrazures" to Miller. Stewart (Edward Warren, p. 156) called it "an obstacle to be surmounted." The name originated, Miller noted, when a man named Scott became sick and had to be abandoned near the bluffs, but there are many other versions of the story."The name originates from a lamentable event that happened here many years ago. A band of men were proceeding to the mountains:- on reaching this bluff one of the party (Scott) sickened and became so ill that after waiting a few days, they were compelled to go on;- they however detailed a man to remain with the sick man, and bring him on when recovered. Certain appearances about these bluffs would seem to indicate that all the prairie hereabouts was at once time covered with water." 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
27561
label
Scott's Bluffs
core
obj
dtoType
drawing
citationUrl
pageCount
2
Source metadata
id
27561
contentType
drawing
stage
normalized
title
Scott's Bluffs
description
Extracts from Alfred Jacob Miller’s original text, which accompanied his images of Native Americans, are included below for reference. Soon after passing Chimney Rock, the traveler saw Scott's Bluffs, a mound with the appearance of an "immense fortification with bastions, towers, battlements, and embrazures" to Miller. Stewart (Edward Warren, p. 156) called it "an obstacle to be surmounted." The name originated, Miller noted, when a man named Scott became sick and had to be abandoned near the bluffs, but there are many other versions of the story."The name originates from a lamentable event that happened here many years ago. A band of men were proceeding to the mountains:- on reaching this bluff one of the party (Scott) sickened and became so ill that after waiting a few days, they were compelled to go on;- they however detailed a man to remain with the sick man, and bring him on when recovered. Certain appearances about these bluffs would seem to indicate that all the prairie hereabouts was at once time covered with water." 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
citationUrl
rightsUri
CC0
language
en
genreSpecific
Painting & Drawing
watercolors (paintings)
imageCount
2
pageCount
2
source
import
dimensions
units
cm
width
23
height
36.2
dimensionsRaw
H: 9 1/16 x W: 14 1/4 in. (23 x 36.2 cm)
Source extras
med
watercolor and gouache on paper
creator_ids
4486
collection_ids
EAN
exhibition_ids
2164
2165
2167
2860
Page inventory
seq
1
type
photo
mediaId
24c5ef939879cda5
hasOcr
no
hasDescription
no
seq
2
type
photo
mediaId
0fda10b3a3424cbd
hasOcr
no
hasDescription
no