Public collection via the Cleveland Museum of Art
AT-00011152On the Harlem River
About the Artwork
When William Rickarby Miller arrived in America from England in 1845, he found watercolor painting in a dismal state—“a branch of Painting scarcely at all cultivated here.” Nonetheless, Miller made his living producing watercolors for print publications, depicting picturesque American woodlands with the staid British technique of his training. In On the Harlem River, Miller overlays delicate graphite line work with tints of luminous watercolor and dense gouache, capturing the color and light effects of a crisp autumn day. His meticulous transcription of individual leaves, branches, and stones displays his technical finesse, as well as his interest in documenting the particularities of nature. He shared this preoccupation with the Hudson River School, a mid-century American landscape painting movement whose members used detailed, on-site drawings of natural subjects as aids in making oil paintings. Miller’s great innovation was to marry the Hudson River manner to the medium of watercolor, anticipating the landscapes of American watercolorists in the decades to follow.
Inscriptions
signed, lower right, in brown ink: W. R. Miller. Morrisania N Y. Octr 31t. 1855.; in brown ink, lower center: On the Harlem River / nr the High Bridge. Westchester CoY.; in graphite in lower left above framing line: 41; in graphite, mount 26 x 20 for Folio 2.; upper center: View on the Harlem River. 19 x 13.; in graphite, lower left: Tree not Yellow enough to [Sun?]; in black ballpoint pen, lower right: 2 x 2_ [regu?] glass '_ cracked Gold [cream?] mat
Provenance
? (after 1855)-1997: Private Collection, New Jersey. ?-1997: (Mary Lublin Fine Arts, New York, NY) March 4, 1997: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH.
Exhibition history
American Drawings from the Permanent Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (April 19-July 12, 1998). Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 27-October 17, 2000); The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY (May 23-August 19, 2001); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, TX (October 14, 2001-January 6, 2002).
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Quick Overview
- Artist
- William Rickarby Miller (American, 1818–1893)
- Date
- 1855
- Medium
- watercolor with gouache, over graphite, framing lines in graphite
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 37.8 x 51.4 cm (14 7/8 x 20 1/4 in.)
- Type
- Drawing
- Classification
- Drawing
- Department
- Drawings
- Credit line
- Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund
- Accession no.
- 1997.6
More by William Rickarby Miller in museum collections
Open-access museum record · AT-00011152
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