“At rare intervals females take the field in pursuit of game or catching horses,” Miller explained in a caption for Walters. “They are not well adapted to this service, but either through a frolic or at the command of that inexorable mother necessity, she tries her hand.” (Ross, 1968, text accompanying plate 137)
This composition is different from Miller’s other version of females chasing wild horses (CR #442) and he repeated it for the Brown commission almost a decade later. The earlier paintings showed both the horse and rider from the back, but in this instance, Miller has depicted both the rider and horses from the right front, providing better portraits of both.
