Indian Encampment

  • This watercolor depicts what is apparently a Pawnee camp featuring a reposing warrior and his wife with an array of fellow soldiers and their horses in the distance to the right. The preliminary study for this is titled Pawnee Indian Camp (CR# 422). The main protagonist enjoys a savory pipe full of tobacco, wafting smoke from his mouth in what Miller referred to as “fragrant fumes” that encircled “his head in a small cloud.” 

    The relaxed, bucolic feel of the scene belies the character of the individuals portrayed, a group of feared and troublesome Pawnee men. Miller and Stewart dreaded the Pawnee, who during much of the early trip west in 1837 harassed the troop of travelers and provided a continual threat to their safety. Their leader, the reclining figure in the picture, was referred to as “pugnacious” by Miller, a term he would happily have used for all Pawnees. (Ross, 115)  

    Peter H. Hassrick

    Artist
    Alfred Jacob Miller
    Date
    ca. 1858 – 1860
    Catalogue Number
    422A
    Medium
    Watercolor on paper
    Inscriptions

    LL: AJMiller

    Dimensions
    8 5/16 x 13 (21.9 x 33.0 cm)
    Accession Number
    37.1940.115
    Subjects
    Indians, Pawnee Indians

    The artist; William T. Walters, Baltimore, MD; present owner by gift