Fur Traders Descending the Missouri
George Caleb Bingham, 1845
rural upbringing
apprenticed to a cabinet maker; largely self-taught
1834 –begins painting portraits
1844 – settles in Missouri
1840s – American-Art Union engraves Fur Traders Descending the Missouri and Jolly Flatboatmen; engravings sold to approximately 10,000 subscribers
1852 – Bingham paints second version of County Election (engraved by John Sartain)
1856 –visits Emanuel Leutze in Dusseldorf
Philadelphhia (1838); Washington, DC (1841-44); Dusseldorf (1856-59)
Daniel Wadsworth, Luman Reed, Samuel Ward, Missouri State legislature
Jolly Flatboatmen, 1846 (National Gallery of Art, Washington DC)
County Election, 1851 (one version in St Louis Museum of Art)
Adams, Henry. “A New Interpretation of Bingham’s Fur Traders Descending the Missouri,” The Art Bulletin, vol. 65, no. 4 (December 1983): 675-80
Rash, Nancy. The Painting and Politics of George Caleb Bingham. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1991