The Indian Certificate follows the composition of an earlier watercolor painted for Stewart’s album, The Indian Guide (CR# 84), but flips the image along its vertical axis so that the figures face toward the right side of the page rather than the left. There are enough similarities in details such as the arrangement of the horse’s legs to suggest that Miller had brought home an intermediary sketch copied from the one in the album and used it as a basis for this image.
Besides reversing the orientation of the image, Miller has made one other substantial change. In the Walters watercolor, Stewart clearly holds a letter that he appears to read. Miller’s accompanying text focuses on the letter, calling it a “certificate of good character,” and describes how some Indians carried letters of reference “from those whom they have served in order to recommend themselves to others.”
It is possible that Miller meant to allude to this practice in The Indian Guide as well, because Stewart is shown holding a small, rectangular object in his right hand. If so, it is curious that Miller did not choose to portray an unambiguous, open sheet of paper, as he did twenty years later in this watercolor.
