Peter Rindisbacher

Peter Rindisbacher was born in 1806 in Eggiwil, Berne, Switzerland. In 1821, at age 15, he immigrated to British North America (Canada) with his large family via Hudson Bay to Lord Selkirk’s Red River settlement (Winnipeg) where he continued to paint. In 1826 after five years of hardship, the family moved to the United States and Peter eventually settled in St. Louis, Missouri, where he prospered and painted, but died prematurely in 1834. Precocious and industrious, Rindisbacher trained early and professionally with Alpine watercolour landscape artist and printmaker, Jakob Samuel Weibel (1771-1846). His example likely showed Peter that the portrayal of his remarkable voyage and life experience in North America could prove lucrative not only through local commissions but also in the printmaking culture and illustrated press in Europe and North-America, which lent him brief notoriety in his lifetime. Increasing demand for his rarely signed, highly prized subjects of North American Native culture caused him to generate several finished variants of his work in his inimitable, crisp and brilliant graphic style, of which three fine examples are presented in the following lots. His substantial watercolour versions of , ‘Blackfoot Hunting in Snow Shoes’ (lot 130) and ‘Indian Hunter Shooting at Bison’, (lot 131) are among the earliest graphic depictions of how bison were vigorously hunted by Native peoples for survival on the North American plains. Rindisbacher sets the explosive action under the great open sky of the endlessly flat, luminous, snowbound prairie. Other unique variants, now preserved in prestigious public collections (Library and Archives Canada, Manitoba Museum of Man and Nature, Amon Carter Museum) show different arrangements of clusters of bison, of hunters attacking them up close or crawling up in the distance and of bison attacked by frenzied dogs. Rindisbacher’s lyrical procession, ‘Dog Cariole’ (lot 129) denotes a more genteel scene of a unique mode of winter transport gliding over the western prairie. This version, preserved in almost pristine condition, is unquestionably one of the finest watercolours from the hand of the artist. Set on the stark-white, winter prairie before a burst of blue clouds, the group’s elegant classical design is punctuated with vibrant reds, yellows and blues. The work was held in such high esteem as to figure amongst the six earliest lithographic views after Rindisbacher’s work, published by the Hudson’s Bay Company in London, in 1825. The compelling beauty of Rindisbacher’s work continues to also captivate scholars in Europe and North America, whose soon to be published research will shed new light on his work and his interpretations of North American Native culture. The ever-increasing swell of appreciation for his oeuvre justly recognizes its brilliant and enriching contribution to early North American western art. Alvin Josephy. The Artist was Young Man. Amon Carter Museum, Forth Worth, Texas. 1970 Emile H. Bovay. Le Canada et les Suisses. Edition Universitaires, Fribourg, Switzerland. 1976 Edouard Pettit. Jakob Samuel Weibel. Edition Staempfli, Berne, Switzerland. 1996 We are grateful to Gilbert Gignac, independent Curator previously with Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa for his kind assistance in the preparation of this catalogue entry.