Alfred Jacob Miller War Path 1837 Watercolor 9" x 12" Courtesy, the Bank of America, Formerly The Boatmen's National Bank of St. Louis Collection. In such an early cultural setting as the Mercantile, art was a fluid commodity, viewed as it was with various emotions, from reverence to the merely decorative, with great excitement, to at times, indifference. It must have been collected, gathered, and presented here by the founders, these philanthropically-minded business leaders of a bygone age, as a conscious service to the community, much as the oldest books in the collection came to the Library in a similar way—used, even touched, loved or possibly even hated, much as a well received volume, or a controversial one, was enjoyed or disliked by the Library's readers.