Seth EastmanAmerican, 1808–1875Gathering Wild Rice
Can I see it?
Not on view at present
Where is “Gathering Wild Rice” now? Collection: Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis. Not on view at present. Checked September 29, 2026.
Minneapolis, United States
It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.
- Checked
- In this state since
- Source
- The museum
About the work
This is the first known picture by a non-Native artist of people harvesting Minnesota’s proudest hotdish ingredient. The birchbark canoe indicates these women are probably Anishinaabe (Ojibwe); Dakota people typically carved canoes from tree trunks. One woman steadies the canoe while the others bend stalks over the gunwale and gently release the seeds with paddles. The wild grain is then gathered, dried, and hulled. Ohiyesa (also called Charles Eastman), a grandson of Seth Eastman and the Dakota woman Wakaninajinwin, described the next step: “The women then pour it upon a robe and begin to shake it so that the chaff will be separated by the wind.”
Read on
This watercolor, one of 35 works on paper by Eastman in Mia’s collection, was the basis for an illustration in Henry Rowe Schoolcraft’s massive Historical and Statistical Information Respecting the History, Condition, and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States (Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo & Co., 1851-57).
Minneapolis Institute of Art
Details
- Accession number
- 2014.31.27
In the catalog
Sources
- Minneapolis Institute of Art
- Image: Minneapolis Institute of Art — public domain
