Monumental painting in SLAM’s collection only known survivor of its kind

Measuring 348 feet long, this rare work is the only known Mississippi River panorama painting to survive by John J. Egan (1810–1882) and is a remarkable remnant of a once-popular form of entertainment in the 19th century.

Panoramic paintings were shown with narration, music, and special sound and light effects, promising viewers in the 19th century adventure and spectacle. People would pay 25 cents to experience the grandeur of the Mississippi Valley or to see other landscapes. Panorama paintings were shown widely, as often as feature films are shown in theaters today.

Other panorama painters of the Mississippi Valley included John Rowson Smith (1810–1864) and Henry Lewis (1819–1904), whose respective works had inceptions in St. Louis, according to to former City Art Museum director Perry T. Rathbone in his book Mississippi Panorama. Another painter, John Banvard (1815–1891), was one of the most successful panorama showmen of the 19th century, and he advertised his work as covering three miles of canvas.

Egan’s work in SLAM’s collection, Panorama of the Monumental Grandeur of the Mississippi Valley, made around 1850, presents 2,668 square feet of detailed landscape. At first glance, it appears to be a single large painting of the Mississippi and Ohio River valleys. However, concealed behind the frame are 24 additional scenes on a long strip of fabric attached to two vertical rollers.

Egan’s panorama functioned as a scrolling slideshow for archaeologist Montroville W. Dickeson, who lectured from town to town about his excavations. The painting’s 25 colorful vignettes replicate the perspective from a steamboat deck. Egan illustrated a fictionalized version of Dickeson’s expeditions, transporting the audience on an imagined journey down remote waterways.

The scene above is titled The Tornado of 1844; Destruction of Indian Settlements; Horrid Loss of Life. A ferocious wind whips through this scene, hurling a tree—roots and all—into the air. A grown man is thrown to the ground while another clings to a tree for dear life. A family hunkers down in the foreground, struggling to survive. This scene refers to a specific tornado that struck near Kansas City, Missouri, in October 1844, killing 20 people and causing damage of more than $8.5 million in current dollars.

Dickeson included this particular scene halfway through the presentation, not to instruct his audiences, but to astonish them with the power of nature. This view of destruction and human devastation would have stirred their emotions and sparked their imaginations about the landscape of the American West.

In the next scene, Dickeson employs a more light-hearted tone, potentially to lighten the audience’s mood after the tragedy of the previous section. Louisiana Squatter Pursued by Wolves; Humorous Scene shows a ravenous pack of wolves chasing a terrified squatter, which referred to settlers in the 19th century who took possession of unclaimed lands in hopes that they might one day purchase them from the government. Though he carries an axe, the squatter chooses to run to his cabin rather than defend himself.

Found in the next and final section of the panorama, De Soto’s Burial at White Cliffs portrays Egan’s version of the 1542 burial of Hernando de Soto, a Spanish conquistador, who died of fever during an expedition. De Soto and his 600 men spent four unsuccessful years searching for gold and silver in the American southeast. Since de Soto had attempted to convince the nearby Native Americans that he was a god, his comrades buried him in the Mississippi River at night, both to hide evidence of his mortality and to prevent the desecration of his corpse.

This scene was probably selected for inclusion because de Soto was the first European to document the Mississippi River. Early explorers like de Soto were favored subjects in art because they legitimized the renewed nationalistic and economic expansion into western territories.

SLAM’s work is the only known Mississippi River panorama to survive. Displays were often damaged by constant travel and were generally too heavy and cumbersome to preserve once their popularity waned around the 1860s. The Museum purchased it from the University Museum at the University of Pennsylvania just over 100 years after its creation.

Prior to its official purchase by the Museum, it was first presented to the St. Louis community as part of the 1949 exhibition, Mississippi Panorama, an exhibition of the life and landscape of the Father of Waters and its great tributary, the Missouri at the City Art Museum (now SLAM). This exhibition garnered such a crowd that the Museum decided to build a new auditorium, which opened to the public in 1959, and was named The Farrell Auditorium in 2005 as part of the capital campaign to raise funds for the new East Building.

Over time, the condition of the panorama deteriorated greatly. The weight of the work caused significant creasing of the canvas, leading to paint loss. It was in this state of disrepair until Museum staff conserved it during the summers of 2011 and 2012, pictured above. Conservation was done in the galleries and Sculpture Hall to accommodate the size of the painting. Along with the canvas and paint conservation work, an aluminum, motorized version of the structural apparatus and rollers was designed and built by the St. Louis-based Laciny Bros., Inc. The work was also featured in a 2019 video, showcasing another live conservation and detailing Dickeson’s travels throughout the lower Mississippi Valley.