I was at the Colorado Convention Center this past week and saw a painting on the wall. It looks like a trapper sitting around a fire playing a concertina.



Zoomed Out


Zoomed in


Artist Plaque


The gift shop didn't seem to sell prints of their paintings, so I couldn't get one. It... almost looks like my Wheatstone. But wouldn't he be more likely playing an Anglo of some sort?

Any ideas?

OH yeah, it's this guy.

That seems to be the attitude these days, but there's contemporary evidence (like photos) to the contrary...

The artist, said to be 'capturing the soul of the cowboy' in his work, needs to do a little history reading before picking up his brushes. The era of trapping was from about 1800 to the 1820s or so...it collapsed in 1834 when fashion turned to silk rather than beaver hats. No English or German concertinas in the US that early....Uhlig invented his in 1834 but it took some time to get to market, and anyway wasn't hexagonal until the early 1850s. Wheatstone might have gotten a first one to a ship in 1833 and sailed it lickety split across the ocean and across the American frontier via wagon by then, were he the fastest man alive...but it would have to be Stephen Chamber's Wheatstone prototype of 1833, and I don't think Stephen bought it from a trapper!

There was a 1950s Kirk Douglas movie, The Big Sky, about this period, which prominently displayed a happy-go-lucky French trapper playing one. Same problem. Maybe Hollywood is where our artist has received his historical training.

Dang re-enactor getting it all wrong!

Still, credit where credit is due, at least it really does look like a concertina. Concertinas in paintings usually look like what my avatar is playing.

Chris

Ah, I didn't realise the picture was meant to be that early! (Maybe the artist didn't, either... )

But nevertheless, my point was that there is evidence that English concertinas were taken on wilderness expeditions, explorations and sea voyages, not just cheap German ones, though obviously not as early as 1834...

Mind you:

QUOTE (Traders and Indian Trappers of Beaver Pelts by O. Ned Eddins)

It is generally thought that by 1840 the beaver era was over, but Hudson’s Bay Company records show that three million beaver pelts were sold in London between 1853 and 1873. It seems ironic that despite the French and French-Canadian's early domination of the fur trade that the majority of the beaver hats were made in England.

Well, the plaque mentions "pioneers", and in Colorado the "pioneering" would be late 1850s. With the exception of a few expeditions like Pike's and Powell's, there weren't a lot of non-native people around until gold was discovered c.1858, sparking a gold rush. Settlers followed the gold seekers, and the Colorado Territory was established in 1861.

Well, here in Northern Ontario, where I live, there are still trappers around, so the "era of trapping" hasn't ended yet.

Tom Ryan

Au contraire, friend. The mountain men were the early pioneers, and many of them much later helped to guide in the wagon trains of later arriving pioneers. French trappers were there in the decade after the Lewis and Clark Expedition, as were the American mountain men, involved in the trapping of Beaver. Colorado's Cache la Poudre Creek (and Wilderness Area) was named by some French trappers working for Astor's fur trading company, for example, just as the main fur trade was crashing (see http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/HNS/Mtmen/furtrade.html ). I suppose you could theoretically get them a concertina by the time the US Rockies trade was truly and completely over in 1840...but that would be extraordinary, since by that time only a very few elites in London had them...and the German concertinas were by current information not yet available yet in London or the US, and were anyway at this time square, not hex.

As far as the Hudson's Bay company is concerned, Stephen, both it's dominance and the decimation of beavers by trappers in the US Rockies closed the American fur trade by 1840 or so; late sales from 1850-1870s would likely have been from Canadians or from small timers picking up the crumbs in the US....a few folks still trap the odd beaver there. Astor, who hired many of the French trappers in the US trade, retired from this business in 1834, as pelt prices started to fall. A good summary of the fur trade in Colorado (scene of the painting of Colorado pioneers) is here, chapter 4:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=RRZKwji...=result#PPP1,M1

The classic period of French fur trappers in Colorado (and Wyoming) would have been from early 1800s to about 1840, max. I would guess that is what the artist was trying to depict, not some very late hangers on. I still think he saw the anglo-playing Frenchie trapper in the movie!

Cheers,
Dan

Mind you though, the painting wasn't titled anything, didn't have a year, and was part of maybe 5-6 other paintings hanging in a hallway. I didn't take pictures of those though since they didn't have concertinas. "Colorado Pioneers" or whatever was on the plaque is all I've got.

Patrick

I've more information. Email from Tina Goodwin (<tina@williammatthewsgallery.com>).
---------------------------


Dear Patrick:

There isn’t a print available of the painting of The Trapper, that you saw at the Convention Center. However, there were several studies in preparation for the commissioned painting. I am attaching jpeg files of the watercolors and pasting them as well into the body of this email with the details for each painting.

A Limited Edition reproduction of another painting entitled, The Trapper, is available. Here is the link to the page on our website where it appears,
http://store.estreet.com/willmatt/Detail.bok?no=818

and below is the image that I have pasted into the email.


The Trapper
Edition of Fifty
$580


Evening Light
19 1/4 x 28 image
32 x 38 approximate framed size
Watercolor on Paper
$10500.00


Evening Tunes
28 x 16 image
40 x 26 approximate framed size
Watercolor on Paper
$9600

If I can answer any additional questions please feel free to contact me at the gallery.

Were you aware of the artwork of William Matthews before seeing the paintings at the Colorado Convention Center?

Many thanks for your interest!

Kind regards,

Tina
Tina Scatuorchio Goodwin
Director
William Matthews Gallery
1617 Wazee Street
Denver CO 80202
T: 303.534.1300
F: 303.534.2853
tina@williammatthewsgallery.com
www.williammatthewsgallery.com
------------------------------------------------------------

Anyway, I haven't that kind of money for paintings. If I did, I'd be buying concertinas. Still... interesting to see a concertina just randomly like that.

Patrick

I agree with you completely re: fur trade. I worked at an c. 1790 archaeological site in Ontario, which represented the dying gasp of the fur trade in this part of the world. Even at that date, furs had to be brought in from far to the west, the local area having been trapped out.

However, I was defining "pioneer" as someone who moves in and sets down roots. The trappers and traders tended to be pretty solitary, and lived pretty light on the land. Having said that, I probably shouldn't have offered an opinion based only on a detail from the painting. In retrospect, I have no idea what the artist was trying to portray! What a lively and wide ranging forum this is

Good call going to the source Patrick .

Well, I have email back to Tina asking if she knows of where he got his inspiration for the trapper playing a concertina. I'm not sure I'll get a response from the source, being as I'm not in the market for a *gulp* $10k painting of a trapper playing the concertina. I might not mind a much less expensive print, but alas not.

I do like the other painting that I didn't actually see with the fire and such.

If I had $10k to spare though... I'd spend it on concertinas!

Patrick

Dear Dieppe: if you ever feel like really following through with the research. . . .please consider submitting it for the "Picture Gallery" in PICA. . . . .can you date the painting. . . . . and personally, i wouldn't worry about the "title" too much. . . . . .and do allow for some artistic license. . . . . . . . Allan