| Medium: | oil on canvas |
| Size: | 20 x 36 in (51 x 91 cm) |
| Inscription: | l/r "F. Schafer", fraktur hand |
| Provenance: | With Sotheby Los Angeles, 15 October 1979. To collection of Norio Takayama, M.D., Fresno, California, by 1985. |
| Exhibited: | Fresno Collects, Fresno, California, December 1986. |
| Reproductions: | 15 October 1979 sale catalog 262, lot 225; Early California and Western Art Research/Schafer slide #76 (color, 1985) |
| Site: | Great Plains (Montana?). |
| Description: | A dramatically shaded and colored desert scene. Two mounted Indians wearing white feathered headdresses in the center ride to the right, one on a light horse, the other on a dark one. The lighter, grey, grass-covered desert floor in the foreground is dotted with grey-green sagebrush; it contrasts sharply with a darker area in the middle distance; the horses follow the dividing line. In the background the desert floor becomes a deep blue; the horizon is dotted with a series of small bright white buttes and, at the right, a mesa. The sky in the top half of the painting is shaded in layers, grey at the horizon, then lavender, yellow, finally blue. Only the figures are detailed; the rest is broadly sketched and the brush in the foreground is impressionist in appearance. (From a color photograph.) See the list of Plains Indians genre paintings for several possibly related pictures. |
| Identification: | Descriptive title of unknown origin, as used in the 1979 sale catalog. The Early California and Western Art Research index identifies the slide with the Fresno exhibition. |
| Other title(s): | Two Indians in Utah Desert (Early California and Western Art Research index) |
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