Skip to main content
Exhibition History"Native Americans, Five Centuries of Changing Views," Gene Autry Western Heritage Museum, Los Angeles, CA, November 13, 1989 - March 9, 1990.
Artist
Unidentified Artist
(American)
Murder of Jane McCrea
Date1839
MediumOil on canvas
DimensionsSight: 33 1/8 × 26 1/4 in. (84.1 × 66.7 cm)
Object numberN0195.1961
Credit LineCollection of the Fenimore Art Museum. Gift of Stephen C. Clark
Photograph by Richard Walker
Label TextThis painting is a copy done by an unknown artist after John Vanderlyn’s well known work from 1804 of the same title housed at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut. Based on a real event that occurred near Fort Edward, New York on July 27, 1777 this highly dramatized composition was highly circulated during the early nineteenth century and used as a form of propaganda against Native Americans, depicting them as the “savage” enemy of the colonists. James Fenimore Cooper was inspired by the tragedy in his description of the murder of Cora in his 1826 novel The Last of the Mohicans.Exhibition History"Native Americans, Five Centuries of Changing Views," Gene Autry Western Heritage Museum, Los Angeles, CA, November 13, 1989 - March 9, 1990.
On View
Not on view
