Exhibition Guide

In 1837, Alfred Jacob Miller crossed the Platte River on his way to the Rocky Mountains, recording the virtually unspoiled landscape of the prairies and the Far West in myriad sketches. Back in his Baltimore studio, he used those drawings as a lasting source of inspiration. This canvas, created almost three decades after Miller’s trip, is as vivid as the original sketch (Walters Art Museum, Baltimore). Miller wrote, “After an exciting chase over the prairies, the Indian hunters have at length driven the Elk just where they would like to have him. The Elk in his extremity has plunged into the Platte River.” Miller’s “rocking horse” pose, coupled with an old-fashioned French oval format that he saw during his studies at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, tinge the image with romance.