Public collection via the Cleveland Museum of Art
AT-00000267Vale of Kashmir
About the Artwork
Cincinnati-based Duncanson was the first African American artist to achieve recognition both nationally and abroad. This panoramic painting, one of his grandest, was inspired by an episode in Thomas Moore’s then-popular epic poem, Lalla-Rookh (1817), which describes a Persian princess’s journey to the Indian subcontinent to be married. In Duncanson’s conception, members of a courtly entourage depart a quasi-Islamic palace, arriving by boat onto a scrim of land where they ascend a monumental staircase to a plaza with a fountain spraying an impressive plume of water. Despite these substantial storytelling details, the human elements remain subordinate to the overwhelming splendor of the natural landscape in and of itself.
Inscriptions
Inscribed at lower right: Duncanson. / 1867. / Cinti O
Provenance
Andrew Nicholas Jergens [1881–1967], Cincinnati, OH Elizabeth Marie Jergens [born 1950], Los Angeles, CA, by inheritance [Spanierman Gallery, New York, NY, consigned by 1980] Richard Manoogian [born 1936] and Jane Cameron Manoogian [born 1943], Grosse Pointe Park, MI, purchased in 1980 [Jonathan Boos, New York, NY, consigned in 2014] The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH, purchased in 2014
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 7, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Robert S. Duncanson (American, 1821–1872)
- Date
- 1867
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- Framed: 94.9 x 154.6 x 12.1 cm (37 3/8 x 60 7/8 x 4 3/4 in.); Unframed: 73 x 132.4 cm (28 3/4 x 52 1/8 in.)
- Type
- Painting
- Classification
- Painting
- Department
- American Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Sundry Purchase Fund
- Accession no.
- 2014.12
More by Robert S. Duncanson in museum collections
Open-access museum record · AT-00000267
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