George Catlin, N.A. (American, 1796-1872), "West Point Military Academy", c. 1824-1827, watercolor on paper, sight 12 in. x 18 3/8 in , in original gilt-lined walnut frame. E2500-3500 Provenance: Collection of James A. Klein. Note: This sheet, which is a noteworthy discovery in the study of this famous "artist of the American Indians", as well as in the development of American printmaking, is one of two original watercolors that Catlin consigned to the celebrated New York engraver John Hill, in late 1827 or early 1828, and which were issued on May 15 of the latter year as a pair of aquatint etchings, tinted with watercolor (at plate sizes of about 14 in. x 20 in. each, making their images one-to-one reproductions of Catlin's drawings). The inscription on the print of this scene (see illustration) reads: "To the Cadets of the WEST POINT MILITARY ACADEMY this print is respectfully dedicated, by their friend and Servant, Geo Catlin. / Drawn by G. Catlin. / Engraved, Printed and Coloured by J. Hill. / Published May 15th. 1828. by G. Catlin N. York." Catlin's two West Point views are thus among the earliest polychromed prints of Hudson River sites, paralleling the aquatints published earlier in the 1820s in Henry Megary's Hudson River Portfolio (after watercolors in that case by William Guy Wall, that were also principally engraved by John Hill). Catlin's beloved younger brother Julius was enrolled at the Academy from 1820 to 1824, when he took his commission; thus, to judge from the artist's description of himself as a "friend" of the Corps of Cadets, it seems probable that he may have drawn this view during Julius's student years, when George (then resident in Philadelphia) might well have visited him. Indeed, Catlin is documented to have been already working on a miniature portrait of the New York Governor DeWitt Clinton, in nearby Albany, in December of 1824 (see his immediately subsequent, half-length "Clinton" portrait, in this same catalogue). After being elected as a member of the new National Academy of Design in 1826, and moving to New York in 1827 ( where he met John Hill, already well known for his Portfolio aquatints , Catlin continued to travel the Hudson: he was in fact married in Albany, just five days before the issuance of the print of this scene, on May 10, 1828. Unfortunately, this published view and its pendant ( which shows the parade ground from the opposite direction) almost at once became memorials, rather than brotherly homages: while delivering a replica of the third of Catlin's "Clinton" portraits-a standing full figure-to the Franklin Institute at Rochester, in September 1828, Julius joined a group there for a swim, and was drowned. References ( for the prints): Gloria Gilda De k, Picturing America, Princeton, 1988 vol. 1, p. 242, no. 356; vol. 2, figs. 356.1 and 356.2; and E. McSherry Fowble, Two Centuries of Prints in America, Charlottesville, 1987, p. 396, no. 277, with color plate.