Lot Essay
Alfred Jacob Miller and William Drummond Stewart met in New Orleans, Louisiana in March or April of 1837. Stewart, a Scottish artistocrat and veteran of the Battle of Waterloo, wandered into Miller's studio several times and was considering the artist for a position to accompany one of Stewart's annual journeys to the trappers rendezvous on the Green River. Stewart had made two or three annual trips to the Northwest, beginning in April of 1833 and was making arrangements to set out for the annual event in 1837.
Miller was just 26 years old, but had undergone substantial academic schooling from Thomas Sully and a two year study journey in Europe where he was exposed to the romantic works of Delacroix. It was decided that Miller would accompany the party on their voyage through the Rocky Mountains.
For an expedition to hire an artist to accompany it on the journey was not unusual. Bodmer and Catlin had both been on journeys west with expedition parties, but in both cases, the journeys had stopped short of the great Rocky Mountains which were not yet depicted by any artist.
Stewart and Miller joined the American Fur Company's caravan in the late spring of 1837 in St. Louis and began the long trek north and west. The party travelled through the territories that are now the states of Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and Wyoming along a path that would later become known as The Oregon Trail. Miller made numerous sketches and watercolors that he intended to recreate in a series of monumental canvases that would decorate Stewart's family home, Murthly Castle in Perthshire, Scotland. Apart from their use as studies for the large paintings that were commissioned by Stewart, it is these sketches and watercolors that would become the fodder for almost all of Miller's later creations.
In this painting, Lake Scene, Wind River Mountain, the monumentality and romantic vision that pervade Miller's work are at their most successful. Miller, unlike some of the earlier western artists (Rindisbacher, Catlin and Bodmer) was uninterested in rendering exact nature and scientific studies of the Indians and creatures of the west. Rather, the European influence of his study several years earlier and his romantic vision led him to portray the spirit and sentiment that he must certainly have felt being one of the earliest white men to see the breathtaking Rocky Mountains.
Lake Scene, Wind River Mountain is Miller at his best, persuading the viewer to understand the monumentality and freshness of the unexplored landscape. His own words are best to describe the scene: "...No primrose road of dalliance met our eyes, we scrambled over rocks, through briars and brushwood, crossed rapid streams and ascendeed steep aclivities. We at last found ourselves on the borders of these beautiful lakes, and were richly repaid for our difficulties. From immense sheets of clear water, mountains rose back of mountains, each higher than the other, until the highest terminated in needle points of sold granite, covered with snow: Mountains on whose barren breast The laboring clouds do often rest. This sketch, although conveying some idea, must of necessity fall short of the enchanting reality." (M.C. Ross, p. 80). This quote is from Miller's contemporary notes and accompanies a watercolor sketch in the collection of the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, Maryland that depicts the same landscape as the present example.
There are several related examples in the collection of the Walters, and a very closely related watercolor of an almost identical composition is in the collection of the Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska. There are several other oils extant that depict similar scenery. Two oils commissioned by the Wilson family of Baltimore Maryland in 1853 are of identical size.
Miller was just 26 years old, but had undergone substantial academic schooling from Thomas Sully and a two year study journey in Europe where he was exposed to the romantic works of Delacroix. It was decided that Miller would accompany the party on their voyage through the Rocky Mountains.
For an expedition to hire an artist to accompany it on the journey was not unusual. Bodmer and Catlin had both been on journeys west with expedition parties, but in both cases, the journeys had stopped short of the great Rocky Mountains which were not yet depicted by any artist.
Stewart and Miller joined the American Fur Company's caravan in the late spring of 1837 in St. Louis and began the long trek north and west. The party travelled through the territories that are now the states of Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and Wyoming along a path that would later become known as The Oregon Trail. Miller made numerous sketches and watercolors that he intended to recreate in a series of monumental canvases that would decorate Stewart's family home, Murthly Castle in Perthshire, Scotland. Apart from their use as studies for the large paintings that were commissioned by Stewart, it is these sketches and watercolors that would become the fodder for almost all of Miller's later creations.
In this painting, Lake Scene, Wind River Mountain, the monumentality and romantic vision that pervade Miller's work are at their most successful. Miller, unlike some of the earlier western artists (Rindisbacher, Catlin and Bodmer) was uninterested in rendering exact nature and scientific studies of the Indians and creatures of the west. Rather, the European influence of his study several years earlier and his romantic vision led him to portray the spirit and sentiment that he must certainly have felt being one of the earliest white men to see the breathtaking Rocky Mountains.
Lake Scene, Wind River Mountain is Miller at his best, persuading the viewer to understand the monumentality and freshness of the unexplored landscape. His own words are best to describe the scene: "...No primrose road of dalliance met our eyes, we scrambled over rocks, through briars and brushwood, crossed rapid streams and ascendeed steep aclivities. We at last found ourselves on the borders of these beautiful lakes, and were richly repaid for our difficulties. From immense sheets of clear water, mountains rose back of mountains, each higher than the other, until the highest terminated in needle points of sold granite, covered with snow: Mountains on whose barren breast The laboring clouds do often rest. This sketch, although conveying some idea, must of necessity fall short of the enchanting reality." (M.C. Ross, p. 80). This quote is from Miller's contemporary notes and accompanies a watercolor sketch in the collection of the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, Maryland that depicts the same landscape as the present example.
There are several related examples in the collection of the Walters, and a very closely related watercolor of an almost identical composition is in the collection of the Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska. There are several other oils extant that depict similar scenery. Two oils commissioned by the Wilson family of Baltimore Maryland in 1853 are of identical size.