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Seth Eastman

Village of the Pimo Indians, River Gila

Description

Maker

Seth Eastman (American, 1808-1875)

Title

Village of the Pimo Indians, River Gila
Indian Village, River Gila

Year

ca. 1853

Medium

  • Watercolor with scraping and graphite on paper

Materials/Techniques

Techniques

  • Watercolor with scraping and graphite on paper

Materials

watercolor, graphite

Dimensions

23.2 x 30.8 cm (9 1/8 x 12 1/8 inches)

Credit / Object Number

Credit

Gift of the Rhode Island School of Design Library

Object Number

47.112.11

Type

  • Drawings and Watercolors

Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Landscape and Leisure
19th-Century American Drawings from the Collection
Mar 13, 2015 – Jul 19, 2015

Label copy

These topographical drawings by Seth Eastman show the Sonoran Desert against the backdrop of the Sierra Estrella, and are among the first views European settlers had of these remote areas of southern Arizona. The first drawing depicts a Pima (Akimel O'odham) village, with dwellings, a stockade, a man wearing a lozenge-shaped armature on his back, and another weaving at a loom staked to the ground.

These are two of the thirteen drawings by Eastman in the Museum’s collection that were part of the government-sponsored project to survey the U.S.-Mexico border, led by Providence native John Russell Bartlett. Eastman did not accompany Bartlett but instead translated his field drawings, and those of the survey artist Henry Cheever Pratt, into watercolors for publication. Cuts in government funding meant that Eastman’s drawings were never published in Bartlett’s final volume. The original field sketch made by Pratt-now in the collection of the John Carter Brown Library, Providence-notes that it portrays Maricopa, the Pima winter village on the Gila River.

Use & Feedback

Image use

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This object is in the Public Domain and available under a CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication

Tombstone

Seth Eastman (American, 1808-1875)
Village of the Pimo Indians, River Gila; Indian Village, River Gila, ca. 1853
Watercolor with scraping and graphite on paper
23.2 x 30.8 cm (9 1/8 x 12 1/8 inches)
Gift of the Rhode Island School of Design Library 47.112.11

To request new photography, please send an email to imagerequest@risd.edu and include your name and the object's accession number.

Feedback

We view our online collection as a living documents, and our records are frequently revised and enhanced. If you have additional information or have spotted an error, please send feedback to curatorial@risd.edu.

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