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Image for Prairie Scene: Mirage
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Prairie Scene: Mirage Thumbnail
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Prairie Scene: Mirage Thumbnail
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Prairie Scene: Mirage

Alfred Jacob Miller (American, 1810-1874) (Painter)
1858-1860
watercolor on paper
(18th and 19th Centuries )

Extracts from Alfred Jacob Miller’s original text, which accompanied his images of Native Americans, are included below for reference.

The men were tormented by thirst several times while crossing the prairie. It was not unusual in such a situation to see a delightful lake looming on the horizon. When the horses did not "quicken their motion, or snort," Miller knew that he was seeing a mirage. Although Miller is noted for the first pictures of the Rocky Mountain fur trade, he also painted some of the freshest and most candid prairie scenes to come out of the overland trail.

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
Provenance (from the French provenir, 'to come from/forth') is the chronology of the ownership, custody, or location of a historical object.

William T. Walters, Baltimore, 1858-1860, by commission; Henry Walters, Baltimore, 1894, by inheritance; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.

Exhibitions

1996-1997 Plain Pictures: Images of the American Prairie. University of Iowa Museum of Art, Iowa City; Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth.
1988 Alfred Jacob Miller: Maryland and the West. The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore; Washington College, Chestertown; Frostburg State University, Frostburg; Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington, Rockville.
1984 Alfred Jacob Miller: Watercolors and Drawings. The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore.
1981-1982 Alfred Jacob Miller: An Artist on the Oregon Trail. The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore; Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth; Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Cody.

Conservation

Date Description Narrative
9/25/1989 Loan Consideration examined for loan
6/1/1990 Treatment mounted; re-housed
8/21/1995 Loan Consideration examined for loan
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Geographies

USA (Place of Origin)

Measurements

8 3/4 x 13 3/16 in. (22.3 x 33.5 cm)

Credit Line

Commissioned by William T. Walters, 1858-1860

Location in Museum

Not on view

Accession Number

In libraries, galleries, museums, and archives, an accession number is a unique identifier assigned to each object in the collection.

37.1940.149

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Parent Object

Image for Series of 200 Watercolors

Series of 200 Watercolors

Alfred Jacob Miller (American, 1810-1874)
19th century
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Hours

  • Wednesday—Sunday: 10 a.m.—5 p.m.
  • Thursday: 1–8 p.m.
  • Monday—Tuesday: Closed

Location

600 N. Charles St.
Baltimore, MD
21201

Phone

410-547-9000

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