Museum Collections
Luce Center
Oneida Family
Object Number:
1953.215
Date:
1807
Medium:
Watercolor, graphite, Conté crayon, brown ink, and brown gouache on paper
Dimensions:
Overall: 5 5/16 x 7 9/16 in. (13.5 x 19.2 cm), irregular
mat: 11 x 14 in. ( 27.9 x 35.6 cm )
Marks:
Inscribed at lower left outside image in brown ink: "Envoyé à Mde Boisgrand."
Inscriptions:
Inscribed at lower left outside image in brown ink: "Envoyé à Mde Boisgrand."
Description:
Figures
Gallery Label:
This scene of an Indian family on an autumn hunt was probably sketched near Utica, New York in the fall of 1807. The father has a deer slung over his shoulders and uses a bow for balance; the mother is in the center and a small boy is at the left. The drawing perfectly illustrates the baron's comment in his memoirs on the traditional division of labor between the sexes of the natives: "The men do nothing, while the women are always encumbered with cultivating the earth..."
Credit Line:
Purchase
Provenance:
De Neuville family, France; E. De Vries, Paris, 1928; Columbia University Press Book Store, NYC, 1929; Old Print Shop, NYC, 1953
Due to ongoing research, information about this object is subject to change.