Sioux Indian at a Grave

Details

ALFRED JACOB MILLER (1810-1874)
Sioux Indian at a Grave
signed with conjoined initials 'AJM' (lower right)
watercolor and gouache on paper
9 1⁄2 x 8 in. (24.3 x 20.3 cm.)

Provenance

Rosequist Gallery, Tucson, Arizona.
Parke-Bernet, New York, 17 October 1980, lot 20, sold by the above.
Private collection, acquired from the above.
Parke-Bernet, New York, 8 December 1983, lot 90, sold by the above.
Gallery of the Masters, St. Louis, Missouri.
Sydney Melville Shoenberg, Jr., acquired from the above, 1988.
Sotheby's, New York, 22 May 2002, lot 173, sold by the above.
Acquired by the late owner from the above.

Literature

R. Tyler, Alfred Jacob Miller: Artist on the Oregon Trail, Fort Worth, Texas, 1982, p. 355, no. 446A.

Conditions of sale

Brought to you by

Tylee Abbott Senior Vice President, Head of American Art

tabbott@christies.com +1 212 707 5925

Lot Essay

Related watercolors are in the collections of the Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska; the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, Maryland; the Stark Museum of Art, Orange, Texas; and the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Discussing the importance of proper gravesites across Indian cultures, Alfred Jacob Miller wrote, "The modes of burial are various, each tribe differing from another...The ordinary burial is a mound with a Buffalo skull (fit emblem of mortality) placed upon it. The Indians make their stated pilgrimages to these spots, sit down quietly, and seem to commune with the inmate." (as quoted in M. Ross, The West of Alfred Jacob Miller, Norman, Oklahoma, 1951, p. 191)

More from Stewards of the West: The Knobloch Collection

View All