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Prairie on Fire
Accession # 48.195
Artist Charles Deas
Title Prairie on Fire
Date 1847
Medium Oil on canvas
Dimensions 28 3/4 x 35 15/16 in. (73 x 91.3 cm) frame: 38 1/2 × 45 3/8 × 5 in. (97.8 × 115.3 × 12.7 cm)
Signed Signed lower right: "1847. / C Deas."
Credit Line Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Alastair B. Martin, the Guennol Collection
Location Visible Storage: Case 16, Screen N (Paintings)

Curatorial Remarks: Prairie Fire takes the classic damsel-in-distress story line and transports it to the American West. Panicked horses and frantic riders race through a prairie as a fire rages in the background. In choosing this setting, Charles Deas drew on popular imagery in nineteenth-century visual art and literature, including James Fenimore Cooper’s novel The Prairie.