Hunting the Grisly [sic] Bear

  • This large oil painting originally decorated the walls of Murthly Castle and celebrated Stewart’s valor, hunting skills, and exotic travels in the West. Pictured here is Stewart confronting an aroused grizzly bear. Two of Stewart’s companions can be seen in the distance riding toward the hunter and hunted, but impeded by rocks and trees. A precipitous mountain, a few years later to be named Fremont Peak, rises abruptly in the background, accentuating the perilous nature of the unfolding scene. Stewart and the bear, highlighted in otherwise darkened surroundings, perform as actors on a stage in nature’s enduring drama of man against nature.

    Peter H. Hassrick

    Artist
    Alfred Jacob Miller
    Date
    ca. 1839
    Catalogue Number
    143
    Medium
    Oil on Canvas
    Inscriptions

    None

    Dimensions
    30 x 43 (76.2 x 109.22 cm)
    Accession Number
    Subjects
    Grizzly Bears, William Drummond Stewart

    The artist; Sir William Drummond Stewart, 1839; Frank Nichols 1871; [Appleby Brothers]; [B. F. Stevens and Brown, London, England, 1937]; Everett D. Graff, Winnetka, IL, 1937; present owner by gift of the Graff family