Vincent Colyer
Two Hundred Miles East of Bascom

ArtistAmerican, 1825–1888
CultureAmerican
Titles
  • Two Hundred Miles East of Bascom
DateMay 1, 1869
Made inTexas, United States
MediumWatercolor on paper
DimensionsSheet: 3 5/16 × 5 in. (8.4 × 12.7 cm)
Credit LineThe Bayou Bend Collection, museum purchase funded by Jerry E. Finger, Jonathan S. Finger, and Walter G. Finger in honor of Nanette Finger at "One Great Night in November, 1996"
Object numberB.96.18
Not on view

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Department
Bayou Bend
Description

These five unpublished drawings (See B.96.17, B.96.18, B.96.19, and B.96.20) document areas on the Canadian River of north Texas following the Civil War. A landscape artist, portraitist, and lithographer, Vincent Colyer was elected in 1849 to the National Academy of Design, New York. He exhibited his work in New York and at the Boston Athenaeum, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, and the Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore. Following the Civil War, during which time he painted portraits and attended the sick and wounded, Colyer settled in Connecticut in 1866. In 1869, he served as an Indian commissioner, hired by the United States government to travel to the various Native American agencies of north Texas, Kansas, New Mexico, Colorado, Alaska, and what is now Oklahoma. It was at this time that Colyer documented the terrain and flora of north Texas. 

Colyer’s topographical renderings of this area may have assisted the U.S. Army’s operations on the Southern Plains during the Indian Wars. His artistic activities in Texas also coincide with the government’s effort to investigate western lands in a series of surveys from 1867 to 1879 in order to encourage settlement, promote tourism, and assess natural resources. His work, then, relates to that of such other artist-explorers as Albert Bierstadt (1830–1902), who made his first government expedition west in 1859, and Thomas Moran (1837–1926), who headed west two years after Colyer.

Book excerpt: David B. Warren, Michael K. Brown, Elizabeth Ann Coleman, and Emily Ballew Neff. American Decorative Arts and Paintings in the Bayou Bend Collection. Houston: Princeton Univ. Press, 1998.


Provenance[Edward Eberstadt & Sons, New York, c. 1958]; [Kennedy Galleries, New York]; purchased by MFAH, 1996.
Exhibition HistoryLoaned to Cypress Creek Christian Church and Community Center, Spring, Texas, for display in Colyer exhibition February 9–July 16, 1999
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
Inscribed lower right: 200 miles East of Bascom May 1 / 69
Inscribed on lower center mount: On Big Canadian river [?] Texas
Inscribed on lower right mount: North Side of the Big Canadian river [?] / 200 miles east of Fort Bascom / 1869
Inscribed on verso mount, lower right: 125
Inscribed on verso mount, upper center: No 5
[no marks]

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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On the Big Canadian River
Vincent Colyer
1869
Watercolor on paper
B.96.17
Antelope Hills and Big Canadian River
Vincent Colyer
1869
Watercolor on paper
B.96.19
Osage Race Course, Southern Kansas
Vincent Colyer
c. 1869–1871
Watercolor
B.98.32
Scene on the Canadian River
Vincent Colyer
1869
Watercolor on paper
B.96.20
Rock Scene, Arizona, June 19
Vincent Colyer
1869
Watercolor
B.98.26
Tents at the Agency, Arizona
Vincent Colyer
c. 1869–1871
Watercolor
B.98.31
The Organist
Vincent Colyer
c. 1869–1871
Watercolor on paper
B.97.26
Western Lake View
Vincent Colyer
c. 1869–1871
Watercolor on paper
B.97.31
Wild Gili Flower of the Prairie
Vincent Colyer
April 29, 1869
Watercolor on paper
B.96.21
Moqui village cliff dwellings Arizona
Vincent Colyer
c. 1869–1871
Watercolor on paper
B.97.27
Station on the Northern Pacific Railroad, Idaho Terr.
Vincent Colyer
c. 1869–1871
Watercolor on paper
B.97.28