Creative Commons License
Creative Commons License
Green River (Oregon)
(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 Green River of Wyoming (Oregon Territory to Miller) winds through spectacular mountains to join the Colorado River. Miller trekked through the Rockies for one season and noted many difficulties, especially for those who tried to climb the highest peaks, only to experience "giddiness and headache, attended with vomiting," and turn back.
He has included a camp of Indians en route to the rendezvous near the shore of what might well be Frémont Lake, a romantic touch emphasizing the harmony between unspoiled nature and natural man.
"The sun did not appear to shine so brightly to us the balance of the day," Miller recalls, lamenting the loss of one of his friends. 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
Provenance (from the French provenir, 'to come from/forth') is the chronology of the ownership, custody, or location of a historical object. Learn more about provenance at the Walters.
William T. Walters, Baltimore, 1858-1860, by commission; Henry Walters, Baltimore, 1894, by inheritance; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.
Exhibitions
| 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. |
| 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 |
|---|---|---|
| 8/11/1981 | Examination | examined for exhibition |
| 3/9/1989 | Loan Consideration | examined for loan |
| 9/25/1989 | Loan Consideration | examined for loan |
| 6/1/1990 | Treatment | mounted; re-housed |
| 2/9/1994 | Examination | examined for exhibition |
Geographies
USA
(Place of Origin)
USA, Frémont Lake (Place Depicted)
Measurements
H: 9 1/16 x W: 12 1/4 in. (23 x 31.1 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.
In libraries, galleries, museums, and archives, an accession number is a unique identifier assigned to each object in the collection.
37.1940.82
