John Quincy Adams Ward

Private Collection

Sotheby Parke-Bernet New York, October 17, 1980, lot 3 (consigned by the above)

Hirschl & Adler Galleries, Inc., New York (acquired from the above in 1980)

Wolf Family Collection No. 0697 (acquired from the above on January 31, 1984)

Henry T. Tuckerman, Book of Artists, New York, 1867, p. 581, illustration of another cast

Wayne Craven, Sculpture in America, New York, 1968, fig. 7.18, pp. 247-48, 429, illustration of another cast

Beatrice Gilman Proske, Brookgreen Gardens Sculpture, West Columbia, South Carolina, 1968, pp. 3-7, illustration of another cast

Exh. Cat., Lincoln, University of Nebraska, University Art Galleries, American Furniture Collection, 1970, no. 169, illustration of another cast

Patricia J. Broder, Bronzes of the American West, 1974, pl. 12, pp. 26, 34, 419, illustration of another cast

Exh. Cat., New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City Public Sculpture by 19th Century American Artists, 1974, pp. 42-43

A. Hyatt Mayor & Mark Davis, American Art at the Century, 1974, pp. 108-09, 155, illustration of another cast

Exh. Cat., New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, 200 Years of American Sculpture, 1976, no. 311, fig. 105, pp. 67, 317, 349, illustration of another cast

Matthew Baigell, Dictionary of American Art, New York, 1979, p. 366, illustration of another cast

Mary Lublin, "Carved and Modeled: Nineteenth Century Public Monuments in New York," Arts Magazine, 1982, fig. 1, pp. 74-76, illustration of another cast

Helen A. Harrison, "Dual Approaches in Sculpture," The New York Times, 1983, p. 20, illustration of another cast

Lewis I. Sharp, John Quincy Adams Ward: Dean of American Sculpture, with a Catalogue Raisonné, Newark, 1985, no. 12.15, p. 149

Thayer Tolles, American Sculpture in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, vol. I, New York, 1999, no. 54, pp. 137-39, illustration of another cast

Exh. Cat., Jackson, Mississippi Museum of Art, The American West: Out of Myth, Into Reality, 2000, no. 56, pp. 86-87, illustration of another cast

New York, Hirschl & Adler Galleries, Inc., Carved and Modeled: American Furniture Collection 1810-1940, 1982, no. 15, pp. 36-37, illustrated

Huntington, New York, Heckscher Museum, American Sculpture: Perfection or Reality?, 1983

New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The American West in Bronze, 1850-1925, 2013-14, cat. 75, fig. 33, p. 29, illustrated

John Quincy Adams Ward conceived of The Indian Hunter while working as a studio assistant for fellow sculptor Henry Kirke Brown. Exhibited for the first time at the National Academy of Design in 1862, this form is responsible for Ward’s early success and his immediate induction into the Academy as an Associate Member. 

Although the Native American hunter crouched beside his dog is a very New World theme, Ward’s style is deeply influenced by classical sculpture. The sculptor was particularly inspired by the Greek marble of the Borghese Warrior from the Louvre’s collection. Early photographs from the artist’s studio show that he owned a small plaster cast of the warrior form. 

The success of The Indian Hunter in its statuette form encouraged Ward to enlarge the work. The resulting heroic bronze now resides in Central Park. When it was unveiled before the city of New York in 1868, Ward’s large-scale bronze became the first sculpture by an American artist to be permanently installed in Central Park. Although the artist did not leave surviving records of the cast size, it is believed that fewer than twenty casts of The Indian Hunter exist. Nine examples reside in public collections, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.