Charles Ferdinand Wimar, usually known as Carl Wimar, was born in Germany, 1828; died in St. Louis, November, 1862. Came to America and settled in St. Louis during the year 1843. A few years later he met the French artist Leon de Pomarede, with whom he later studied and made several journeys up the Missouri for the purpose of sketching. Went to Europe and returned to St. Louis about 1857. His Buffalo Hunt, now reproduced, was painted in 1860, exhibited at the St. Louis Fair during the autumn of that year, when it was seen by the Prince of Wales, later Edward VII, for whom a replica was made.
Plate 4
One of four water-color sketches by Peter Rindisbacher secured in London some years ago. Size of original 91⁄4 inches high, 171⁄8 inches long. Collection of David I. Bushnell, jr. Twenty or more similar sketches are in the library of the Military Academy, West Point. One of these was used as an illustration by McKenney and Hall in their great work; the second used by them is in a private collection in Washington. Another of the pictures now at West Point was reproduced by wood cut and appeared on page 181 of Burton's Gentleman's Magazine, Philadelphia, April, 1840. Rindisbacher may have come to America with the Swiss colonists who settled in the Red River Valley in 1821, and in the Public Archives of Canada are six small sketches which were probably made by him at that time. (See pl. [6], a.)
Plate 5
a. A scene near Fort Carlton, 1846, showing buffalo approaching a pound. Reproduction of a photograph of the painting by Kane, now in the Royal Ontario Museum of Archaeology, Toronto, Canada. Size of painting, 18 inches high, 29 inches long.
Paul Kane, born at York, the present city of Toronto, 1810; died 1871. After spending several years in the United States he went to Europe, where he studied in various art centers. Returned to Canada, and from early in 1845 until the autumn of 1848 traveled among the native tribes of the far west, making a large number of paintings of Indians and scenes in the Indian country. One hundred or more of his paintings are in the Museum at Toronto; others are in the Public Archives of Canada, Ottawa. Some of the sketches and paintings were reproduced in his work Wanderings of an Artist, London, 1859.
b. Reproduction of a photograph, probably made in the upper Missouri Valley about 1870.
Plate 6
a. Reproduction of a water-color sketch now in the collection in Public Archives of Canada, Ottawa. It is one of six small sketches "by an artist, probably Swiss, who accompanied the European emigrants brought by Lord Selkirk's agents to the Red River Settlement in 1821." Size of original, 55⁄8 inches high, 75⁄8 inches long. Although not signed it suggests and resembles the work of Peter Rindisbacher. (See note, pl. 4.)
b. Reproduced from an original photograph furnished by the Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul.