The Gift Dance Drummers

or
Gift Dance Drummers—Twilight; The Drummers or Dance Drummers

Artist
Joseph Henry Sharp
Date
ca. 1915; [1920]
Catalogue Number
94
Medium
oil on canvas
Inscriptions

LR: JHSHARP

Dimensions
29 1/2 x 39 1/2 in.
Credit Line
The Rockwell Museum, Corning, NY
Accession Number
78.61 F
Subjects
ceremony, drum, group, woman

The artist; C. R. Morley, Mentor, OH, 1929; [?]; The Rockwell Foundation, Corning, NY; present owner by purchase

This version of The Gift Dance Drummers was first shown in January 1916 at an exhibition at the Hotel Gibson in Cincinnati. In the catalogue brochure for the show, titled Catalogue of Indian and Western Paintings, it appeared as the first listing, suggesting that Sharp probably considered it the best work in the show. Listed simply as Dance Drummers, this work was offered at The Schroeder Galleries in Pasadena in early 1927.
 
It is thought that this painting, titled Gift Dance Drummers - Twilight, sold to C. R. Morley of Mentor, OH in 1927 along with another oil in the Rockwell Museum collection, John & Buffalo Skull, # 97. The combined sale amounted to $1,000. (sales ledgers for April 1929, Sharp Papers)