'' Fur Traders Descending the Missouri'' is an 1845 painting by

George Caleb Bingham George Caleb Bingham (March 20, 1811 – July 7, 1879) was an American artist, soldier and politician known in his lifetime as "the Missouri Artist". Initially a Whig, he was elected as a delegate to the Missouri legislature before the American C ...

. It is one of his most famous paintings, and is owned by the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. He had brought it to

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

on June 4, 1845, along with several other pieces of artwork. It was painted around 1845 in the style called luminism by some historians of American art, and was originally titled ''French-Trader,

Half-breed Half-breed is a term, now considered offensive, used to describe anyone who is of mixed race; although, in the United States, it usually refers to people who are half Native American and half European/white. Use by governments United States I ...

Son''. The

American Art Union The American Art-Union (1839–1851) was a subscription-based organization whose goal was to enlighten and educate an American public to a national art, while providing a support system for the viewing and sales of art “executed by artists in th ...

thought the title potentially controversial and renamed it when it was first exhibited. It reflects the reality of fur traders' common marriages with Native American women, which resulted in the formation of the Métis ethnic group in Canada. The father's ''toque'' cap suggests that he is a ''voyageur'' of French descent. A black fox is in the front of the canoe, with pointed ears, long, sharp snout, and tongue. Black fox pelts were the most expensive, and therefore most desirable, furs of the time. Many Native American tribes regarded black foxes as spiritually symbolic creatures.

References

1845 paintings Paintings by George Caleb Bingham Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art Bears in art {{19C-painting-stub