Minneapolis Institute of Art

The Laughing Waters Three Miles Below the Falls of St. Anthony

Seth Eastman

Date

1849–55

Medium

Watercolor

Department

Arts of the Americas

Institution

Minneapolis Institute of Art

This view of Minnehaha Falls illustrated the poem “The Laughing Waters” by Seth Eastman’s second wife, Mary Henderson Eastman. In a picturesque touch, a windblown hunter juts over the water. There was a market for sentimental verse and romantic adventure in the mid-19th century -- think Longfellow’s 1855 tale of star-crossed lovers Hiawatha and Minnehaha by the shores of Gitche Gumee. Mary capitalized on the seeming exoticism of Native life, having collected Dakota stories “during her sojourn in the wilderness, ” as one critic put it. This picture was reproduced along with Mary’s writings in an 1852 book called The Iris: An Illuminated Souvenir. United States, Americas

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