Visionary Drawing
Cedar Tree Ledger Book (pg. 3/4)
Southern Arapaho
Central Plains
ca. 1880
ink, crayon and graphite on lined paper
height: 7 ¼"
width: 12 ½"
Inventory # P4354-3/4
Sold
PROVENANCE
Collected at the Cheyenne and Arapaho Agency, Darlington, Indian Territory, Oklahoma, in 1882
Sotheby’s, New York, December 4, 1997, lot 447
Jose Bedia, Miami, FL
PUBLISHED
Crónicas de Guerra, amor y visiones místicas/Chronicles of War, Love and Mystic Visions, Bedia, Jose, (Buenos Aires: Latin American Art, 2008), pgs. 14-17
This Ledger Drawing is from the Cedar Tree Ledger Book that consisted of 56 ledger drawings by the hand of at least 4 Southern Cheyenne and Southern Arapaho artists. The book was collected at the Cheyenne and Arapaho Agency, Darlington, Indian Territory (Oklahoma), in 1882, and is closely related to another book of drawings also collected between 1882 and 1884 at the Cheyenne and Arapaho Agency (see Sotheby’s, New York, June 4, 1997, lot 97, and Skinner, Boston, January 11, 2011 – 15 drawings by the Southern Arapaho artist Mad Bull collected by early scout leader Lt. Palmer Tilton). The handwriting in the Cedar Tree Ledger book differs from Lt. Tilton’s and could be that of his successor Lt. John J. Brereton, 24th Infantry, or Lt. Homer Wheeler, 5th Cavalry, Fort Elliot, Texas (Cowdrey, 2017)