This watercolor is sketched on tissue paper, mounted on heavier paper. The composition is very close to that of Interior of an Indian Lodge CR# 93A, suggesting that it may have begun as a tracing of the watercolor from Stewart’s album. However, Miller has substantially altered the composition by moving his group outdoors with a tipi in the distance and added one standing and one reclining figure. The image thus loses some of its intimacy and now resembles many of his other sketches showing small groups of figures lounging outdoors. Miller has also added color to the painting, which obscures the graceful figural drawing of Interior of an Indian Lodge and blurs the contours of the figures. Miller continued to work with the subject in Captain Stewart, Antoine, Pierre, and Indians, CR# 93B, setting the scene in a broader landscape along a river bank. It is not clear whether he settled on a solution to his compositional experiments because no subsequent watercolor or oil version of the composition has been located.
The artist; Carrie C. Miller, Annapolis; The Porter Collection; Mae Reed Porter, Kansas City, MO; [M. Knoedler and Co., New York, NY]; InterNorth Art Foundation, Omaha, NE; present owner
