Indians Lamenting the Approach of the White Man (from McGuire Scrapbook)

Indians Lamenting the Approach of the White Man (from McGuire Scrapbook)

Frederick Stiles Agate

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The son of English immigrants, Agate was a student of Samuel F. B. Morse and a founding member of the National Academy of Design. In this drawing, one of only a few by the artist that survives, four Indians cluster together in attitudes of despair and resignation. Agate studied and worked in Italy in the mid-1830s, and the influence of classical sculpture is evident in the poses and draperies as well as the pyramidal composition. This drawing may have been a study for a painting. It shares a dramatic sensibility with Agate’s other works of the 1830s, including "Jesuit Missionaries among the Indians" and a scene from Dante’s Inferno titled "Count Ugolino" (both whereabouts unknown).

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Indians Lamenting the Approach of the White Man (from McGuire Scrapbook)Indians Lamenting the Approach of the White Man (from McGuire Scrapbook)Indians Lamenting the Approach of the White Man (from McGuire Scrapbook)Indians Lamenting the Approach of the White Man (from McGuire Scrapbook)Indians Lamenting the Approach of the White Man (from McGuire Scrapbook)

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.