Taking the Hump Rib

Generously provided by Amon Carter Museum of American Art

This sketch is like a snapshot of one of Stewart’s proudest moments. He has just brought down a massive bison bull and watches as one of his Indian followers works at removing the beast’s prime delicacy, the hump rib. The drawing became part of the portfolio of sketches that were bound together and displayed in Stewart’s library at Murthly Castle. It would have served conveniently as a companion work in recounting the narrative presented in Miller’s large oil of a similar scene he called Butchering a Buffalo (CR# 118) that hung nearby on the castle walls.

Peter H. Hassrick

Object Information
Provenance

Artist

Alfred Jacob Miller

Date

ca. 1837

Catalogue Number

117A

Medium

Pen and ink with gray wash on gray card

Inscriptions

UL: 29

Dimensions: 8 1/8 x 10 7/8 (20.5 x 27.6 cm)
Accession Number: 28.66
Subjects: Buffalo, Buffalo Hunts, Indians, William Drummond Stewart

The artist; Sir William Drummond Stewart (ca. 1839); Frank Nichols; [Chapman’s, Edinburgh, 1871]; Bonamy Mansell Power; willed to Edward Power (1900); by descent to Major G.H. Power, Great Yarmouth, England; [Parke-Bernet Galleries, Inc., New York, 1966]; present owner

Taking the Hump Rib

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