Medium: | oil on canvas, lined |
Size: | 30 x 60 inches (76 x 152 cm) |
Inscription: | l/r "F. Schafer", in the artist's block-letter hand. |
Verso: | "Indian Vallage in Arizona/relined". Said to have been inscribed "Indian Village, Arizona" before lining. |
Provenance: | With Butterfield & Butterfield, San Francisco, 14 June 2000. To private collection by October 2009. |
Reproductions: | 14 June 2000 sale catalog 7146D, lot 2207; owner's photograph |
Description: | A southwest desert scene with a flat horizon. Two women in brightly colored native dress, one seated on a donkey, are talking in the center of the picture in front of a small village of shelters and sheds made mostly of sticks. Several other figures are barely discernible within the village. Drying racks surround several of the shelters, and a tripod rack stands beside the nearest one. The desert is sprinkled with Saguaro and barrel cacti and sagebrush; the sky is blue. (From a color photograph.) |
Note: | Schafer is not known to have visited Arizona, and the materials of which the huts are constructed do not appear to be local to Arizona. Instead, they look more like the typical huts of the Pomo Indians on the northern California coast. Perhaps someone commissioned a painting of Arizona Indians, so the artist painted a local encampment scene and added several stylized saguaro cacti to provide the appearance of the Sonoran desert. |