Ralph Albert Blakelock

Landscape Silhouette at Twilight

Signed lower right: Ernest Parton

Monogrammed lower left: ATBricher

Signed lower left: R. Gignoux

Monogrammed and dated lower right: JW. 71; on verso: Indian Summer / By Jw. Williamson / N. Y. 1871 –

This mid-19th-century oil painting by Danish-American artist Joachim Ferdinand Richardt (1819-1895) depicts a congregation observing a river baptism, probably in the Mississippi River. In 2009, at President Obama’s Inauguration luncheon, a panoramic view of Niagara was selected as the backdrop to his speech. It’s a breathtaking image, capturing the sublimity of the American Falls and the Horseshoe Falls in all their iconic majesty. The ‘Maid-of-the-Mist’, negotiates the rapids, a mere speck within a broad expanse of water. While beyond, a colossal sheet of spray is sharply illuminated through passing clouds. It was painted by the son of a bookbinder, a humble Danish artist who travelled extensively across the United States to document its nature, buildings and civilization. Admired in his own lifetime, this unassuming adventurer produced scores of resplendent vistas but also numerous vignettes documenting everyday activities. Joachim Ferdinand Richardt was initially destined to become a carpenter but, thankfully, enrolled at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts where he studied under three distinguished masters. Blessed with a skill for drawing, he was awarded medals and in 1839 began exhibiting at the prestigious Charlottenborg Spring Exhibition. In 1841, the Danish Royal Family acquired one of his works and six years later granted him a five-year stipend. Richardt trained at a time of exceptional creative output whereby Denmark was developing a clearer identity. Dubbed ‘National Romanticism’, artists were extolling their country’s natural beauty, while also celebrating humble folk life within rural environs. Stylistically, their work is somewhat comparable with German Romanticism...

Beautiful example of the Hudson River School romantic bucolic New York autumn landscape with cows foraging. Illegible artist signature on stretcher bar (See enhanced images). Condition: very good; professionally cleaned and minor restoration upper right hand corner where paint was missing. Unframed. Image size: 14"H x 24"W x .75"D Hudson River School was an informal association was America's first so-called school of painting and the dominant landscape style until the Civil War. The name derives from a group of 19th-century landscape painters working in New York state. With realistic composition, they depicted romantic views of unsettled areas of the Hudson River Valley especially lakes, rocky gorges, and forests in the Catskill Mountains. About a fourth of these artists utilized luminism or effects with special lighting techniques to convey lofty emotions through contrasts of light and dark. Included in this Hudson River luminist category were Washington Allston, Albert Bierstadt, William Hart, and Frederic Edwin Church...

Marco Aurelio Tricca (American, 1880-1969), Pastoral Landscape Scene, Oil on Canvas mounted on Board, 1929, signed and dated to verso, carved wood frame. Image: 24" H x 30" W; frame:...

Paul Weber was a German born artist that painted beautiful American Landscapes. He exhibited his works in New England, specifically Philadelphia and Boston. After his famed period of...