Prairie on Fire
Charles Deas
Brooklyn Museum photograph
Object Label
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.
Caption
Charles Deas (American, 1818–1867). Prairie on Fire, 1847. Oil on canvas, 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). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Alastair B. Martin, the Guennol Collection, 48.195. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)
Gallery
Not on view
Collection
Gallery
Not on view
Collection
Artist
Title
Prairie on Fire
Date
1847
Medium
Oil on canvas
Classification
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)
Signatures
Signed lower right: "1847. / C Deas."
Credit Line
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Alastair B. Martin, the Guennol Collection
Accession Number
48.195
Frequent Art Questions
Why is the girl hanging/fainted on the horse in this picture?
The artist, Charles Deas, has taken the typical 19th century novel narrative of the "damsel-in-distress" and brought it to the American frontier. The man on horseback is rescuing the woman from the fire that is sweeping across the prairie. She may have fainted from the smoke, or perhaps just from the shock of the situation! It's a very dramatic scene. Eastern urban audiences were interested in the dangerous aspects of Western life in the 1800s, and artists like Deas gave them the vicarious thrills they were seeking.
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