Snake Indian Smoking Pipe in Front of Tipi

  • Miller apparently described the Indian in this version a Snake Indian (the Shoshone were sometimes called the Snake) and depicted him in an even more highly decorated buffalo robe. Since this picture was a part of the album that Miller made for Stewart in 1837, he has pictured a trapper’s tent behind the main figure at the left center with several trappers and traders, rather than Indians, nearby.

    Ron Tyler

    Artist
    Alfred Jacob Miller
    Date
    1837
    Catalogue Number
    331A
    Medium
    Pencil and watercolor on paper
    Inscriptions

    UL: 15

    Dimensions
    8 x 6 1/2 (20.4 x 16.5 cm)
    Accession Number
    37.1940.40
    Subjects
    Snake Indians

    The artist; Sir William Drummond Stewart, ca. 1839; Frank Nichols Stewart, 1871; Bonamy Mansell Power; willed to Edward Power, 1900; by descent to Major G.H. Power, Great Yarmouth, 1966; The Gund Collection of Western Art, Cleveland, OH, 1973; present owner