Miller based this watercolor on the composition of a sketch for Stewart, An Early Dinner Party near Larrimer’s [Laramie] Fork, CR# 92A, but, as with the other subsequent copies, he has reversed the composition and changed the setting from a wooded glen to an open plain. The Stewart sketch identified the setting as Laramie’s Fork, probably the juncture of the North Platte and Laramie rivers in the area of Fort Laramie, where their party had spent time en route to the rendezvous. But later versions dropped that identification, and likewise reversed the time of day, making an early dinner into a breakfast at sunrise.
The thick application of paint and relative lack of detail in the figures suggest this was a working sketch in which Miller focused on developing aspects of the setting and the arrangement of figures. The closer frame around the party as well as the pink tonality make this sketch closer to the Brown version (Breakfast at Sunrise, CR# 92D) than the Walters (Breakfast at Sunrise, CR# 92C), so it may be that Miller executed this sketch in preparation for the later commission.
