Ask the Scholar
Document scope · 3 pages
Scholar
Ask about this object, its catalog metadata, its source description, or the page inventory.
For page-specific OCR and visual context, open one of the page chats.
Source Description
Extracts from Alfred Jacob Miller’s original text, which accompanied his images of Native Americans, are included below for reference. "The scene here presented is remarkable, huge mounds of rock rise suddenly out of the prairie, and near their summits and scattered about their sides were boulders seemingly detached,- while the dry sand plain below is covered with gnarled bushes of the Artemesias. From these plants, found here in the greatest abundance, the atmosphere is strongly impregnated with the smell of camphor and turpentine. Theis whole region from its elevation and purity of air is said to be favorable to the resoration of health, particularly to consumptives,- the respiration of air so highly charged with aromatic plants no doubt contributes to this influence. Our hunters had great sport here with the Mountain sheep, wherever they could get access to them. In ascending the rocks in herds, they gave notice of their locality by the loose stones that came rattling along the declivities, and thown down by them in running - when in good order the meat was similar to our mountain mutton." 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
38169
label
Rock Formations
core
obj
dtoType
drawing
citationUrl
pageCount
3
Source metadata
id
38169
contentType
drawing
stage
normalized
title
Rock Formations
description
Extracts from Alfred Jacob Miller’s original text, which accompanied his images of Native Americans, are included below for reference. "The scene here presented is remarkable, huge mounds of rock rise suddenly out of the prairie, and near their summits and scattered about their sides were boulders seemingly detached,- while the dry sand plain below is covered with gnarled bushes of the Artemesias. From these plants, found here in the greatest abundance, the atmosphere is strongly impregnated with the smell of camphor and turpentine. Theis whole region from its elevation and purity of air is said to be favorable to the resoration of health, particularly to consumptives,- the respiration of air so highly charged with aromatic plants no doubt contributes to this influence. Our hunters had great sport here with the Mountain sheep, wherever they could get access to them. In ascending the rocks in herds, they gave notice of their locality by the loose stones that came rattling along the declivities, and thown down by them in running - when in good order the meat was similar to our mountain mutton." 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
3
pageCount
3
source
import
dimensions
units
cm
width
22.5
height
33
dimensionsRaw
H: 8 7/8 x W: 13 in. (22.5 x 33 cm)
Source extras
inscriptions
[Monogram] lower right: AJMiller
med
watercolor on paper
creator_ids
4486
collection_ids
EAN
exhibition_ids
none
Page inventory
seq
1
type
photo
mediaId
668b46dae862d190
hasOcr
no
hasDescription
no
seq
2
type
photo
mediaId
f8a5b0a5be65e2cd
hasOcr
no
hasDescription
no
seq
3
type
photo
mediaId
21604db19a568ce3
hasOcr
no
hasDescription
no