498 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1950 



Arkansas, on the Great Plains, and at the foothills of the Rockies, as 

 well as on the Upper Mississippi, the Red River of the North, Lake 

 Winnipeg, and Lake Superior. His misfortune lies in his elusive- 

 ness, in the disappearance of the great part of that large body of work 

 he accomplished on those two early journeys beyond the frontier. 



Little is known of Seymour's early years. Dunlap, in his "History 

 of the Arts of Design," said he was a native of England and a friend 

 of Thomas Birch, John Wesley Jarvis, and Thomas Sully in Philadel- 

 phia (Dunlap, 1918, vol. 3, pp. 26, 257). At least three pictures by 

 Birch were engraved by Seymour: Philadelphia (with the Treaty 

 Elm) published May 1, 1801; New York (the "View with the Wliite 

 Horse") issued January 1, 1803; and Mount Vernon, March 15, 1804 

 (Stokes and Haskell, 1933, pp. 46, 48). About 1815 there was pub- 

 lished an engraving by Steel of a Seymour drawing of the Battle of 

 New Orleans (Stauffer, 1907, vol. 2, p. 500). A primitive oil on can- 

 vas of "Indians, Salmon Falls [New Hampshire]," owned by the Whit- 

 ney Museum of American Art, is supposed to be the work of Seymour 

 (pi. 1).' Only for the years 1819-23, however, is there any appreci- 

 able information about his work. 



Seymour's opportunity came when Maj. Stephen H. Long was or- 

 ganizing the Yellowstone Expedition. The desirability of a staff 

 artist was clearly felt, and he was chosen for the position. The in- 

 structions given him in Major Long's orders of March 31, 1819, make 

 clear how valuable his portfolio must have been by the time the party 

 reached home. He was to "furnish sketches of landscapes, whenever 

 we meet with any distinguished for their beauty and grandeur. He 

 will also paint miniature likenesses, or portraits if required, of dis- 

 tinguished Indians, and exhibit groups of savages engaged in celebrat- 

 ing their festivals, or sitting in council, and in general illustrate any 

 subject, that may be deemed appropriate in his art" (James, 1823, 

 vol. 1, p. 3). 



Unhappily, in Edwin James' official report of Long's western ex- 

 pedition, there are few references to, and little detail concerning, the 

 day-by-day work of the artist. In a note at the close of that publica- 

 tion James stated that Seymour had done 150 "landscape views" of 

 which 60 had been finished (ibid., vol. 2, p. 330). But a check of the 

 James volumes does not identify many scenes that the artist sketched. 

 Long himself in his report to Secretary of War Calhoun said that "Mr. 

 Seymour has taken numerous landscape views, exhibiting the charac- 

 teristic features of the country, besides many others of detached 

 scenery" (James in Thwaites, 1905, vol. 17, p. 181). Of all this work, 

 however, only 16 pictures can be identified today ; this lot includes not 



' For permission to reproduce pictures by Seymour I wish to thank the Academy of Natural Sciences 

 of Philadelphia, the Whitney Museum of Art, and the Yale University Library. 



