The Indian Hunter

John Quincy Adams Ward

1860, cast by 1883 · Bronze · The American Wing

With his statuette of a Native American youth and his dog, Ward answered the call for sculpture modeled by home-based, rather than expatriate, artists in a realist style. He imagined an Arcadian hunting scene, a stark contrast to the reservation system by then established to confine Indigenous peoples to U.S. government-specified tracts of land. He later enlarged his model, making refinements based on drawings and wax studies from an 1864 trip to Dakota Territory. An overlifesize bronze was dedicated in New York’s Central Park in 1869, becoming the first sculpture by an American artist to be erected there.

Artist

John Quincy Adams Ward

Date

1860, cast by 1883

Medium

Bronze

Culture

American

Department

The American Wing

Credit line

Morris K. Jesup Fund, 1973