[SCENE OF AN INDIAN CAMP ON MEDICINE BLUFF CREEK, NEAR FORT SILL, WITH TEPEES AND A LODGE IN THE NEAR DISTANCE; BASED ON A PHOTOGRAPH BY WILL SOULE].
Barand, F.:
[Fort Sill, Ok. ca. 1869 or later]. Oil on canvas, 22 x 28 inches. Signed lower right: "F. Barand." Original canvas and stretcher. The painting is in excellent condition. The original gilt American exhibition frame is unrestored, with some chipping and scratches. This handsome and wonderfully detailed painting is based on a photograph taken by frontier photographer Will Soule near Fort Sill, Oklahoma around 1869. Fort Sill, a crucial army post in the U.S. Army push to control the High Plains, was near present-day Lawton, Oklahoma in the southwest corner of Indian Territory. It shows five white men and a group of Indian women standing on the bluff above Medicine Bluff Creek. The stream curves behind the figures, who appear in the foreground. On the bluff behind them is a group of Indian lodges. Judging by the location of the original photograph and the appearance of the lodges, the Indians are almost certainly Kiowa. The men hold rifles, but do not appear to be in uniform; they may be a civilian hunting party or army officers in civilian dress. Nothing is known of the artist, F. Barand, making it difficult to determine exactly when and where the painting was done. However, its exact duplication of the Soule photograph and the style of its frame and stretcher suggest it must have been made very near the time of Soule's photograph in 1869. A most fascinating oil painting of the American West, and an early painting of Indian Territory, containing considerable ethnographic and topographic detail.
(Item ID: WRCAM27265) $15,000.00