Indians Returning from the Hunt (from McGuire Scrapbook)

Indians Returning from the Hunt (from McGuire Scrapbook)

Charles Lanman

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Michigan-born Lanman traveled extensively through the eastern and midwestern United States, making hundreds of sketches on his journeys. He produced numerous panoramic landscapes inhabited by American Indians, usually depicting the figures from a distance and with a nostalgic sensibility. In his travel writings, Lanman occasionally reflected on the settlement of the Great Lakes region and the Indians’ forced migration from their native lands. In "A Summer in the Wilderness" (1847), he wrote: "Many years ago, the whole region lying between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi was the home and dominion of the Illinois Indians. For them alone . . .did the finest of rivers roll their waters into the lap of Mexico, and bear upon their bosoms the birchen canoe, as they sought to capture the wild water fowl; and for them alone did the dense forests, crowding upon these streams, shelter their unnumbered denizens."

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Indians Returning from the Hunt (from McGuire Scrapbook)Indians Returning from the Hunt (from McGuire Scrapbook)Indians Returning from the Hunt (from McGuire Scrapbook)Indians Returning from the Hunt (from McGuire Scrapbook)Indians Returning from the Hunt (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.