Thomas Cole

Reclining Figure in a Mountain Landscape

Leading Hudson River School Painter Famous for New England Views

Signed and dated right of center: J.F. Cropsey / 1852

Initialed lower right: SRG

Monogrammed and dated lower right: DJ 72; on verso: Buck Mountain. / Lake George. / David Johnson, 1872.

Signed and dated lower right: WM.T. Richards. 1872.

Signed lower right in arrowhead: R.A. Blakelock

Signed and dated 1877. Although born in Jamestown, New York, Mortimer Smith would become well-known as a Detroit architect and artist by the end of the nineteenth century. Little is known of Smith's earlier years; however, scholars speculate that he studied in Oberlin and Sandusky, Ohio before moving to Detroit in 1855. There, the artist flourished and became famous for his crisp landscapes of local scenery, including his beloved winter scenes. In addition to his artistic career, Smith founded a successful architectural firm by the name of Smith, Hynchman and Grylls; Smith's reputation in the visual arts was often overshadowed by his draftsmanship as an architect. Nevertheless, he was a vital force in Detroit's arts community exhibiting his works in venues including the Detroit Art...

Signed & dated lower right. Known as a painter of the White Mountains of New Hampshire, Samuel Griggs was listed as an architect in the Boston City directory from 1848 to 1852, a...

Harrison Bird Brown (1831 - 1915) Grand Manan Oil on canvas 12 x 20 inches Signed with initials lower left Harrison Bird Brown was born in 1831 in Portland, Maine, and is best known for his White Mountain landscapes and marine paintings of Maine's Casco Bay...

William Edward Norton (1843 - 1916) Ship Portrait, 1876 Oil on canvas 10 x 16 inches Signed and dated lower left Born in Boston, William Norton became a noted marine painter, stirred by his youth when he sailed on family-owned ships. He studied at the Lowell Institute in Boston, and with George Inness, and then established a studio in Boston. In the early 1870s, he went to Paris and became a student with Chevreuse and A. Vollon, and then he settled in London where he exhibited throughout the last quarter of the 19th century. His reputation there was based on his scenes of the Thames River, and ocean and coastal views. In 1901, he and his wife returned to the United States and settled in New York City. He also painted at Monhegan Island, Maine, where a treacherous ledge on the southern side of the island is named "Norton's Ledge" for him. He was a member of the Boston Art Club with whom he exhibited from 1873 to 1909. He also exhibited with the Pennsylvania Academy, the Royal Academy in London, the Paris Salon, the 1893 Chicago Exposition...

Jasper Francis Cropsey (1823-1900) "Autumn Sunset" ca. 1868 Oil on Canvas 23-1/4 x 34 inches / 35 x 44 1/2 inches framed **Included in the Newington Cropsey Foundation Catalogue Raisonne #2284 - See Images Attached Provenance (probably) Barbour (probably) [unidentified auction, lot no. 631] Wolfgang Kallen, by 1964 Private collection, Woodbury, New York, by 1964- By descent in the family to private collection, Fresh Meadows, New York Spanierman Gallery, New York to Private Midwest Collection, 2011 Note: This painting is included in the catalogue raisonne of the work of Jasper Cropsey by the Newington-Cropsey Foundation, Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. In his 1880 book, Art in America, S. G. W. Benjamin wrote: “The extraordinary variety of the effects of American landscape is…shown by the gorgeousness of our autumnal foliage,” and stated that to paint “effects of sunset, or the scarlet and gold of an American forest in the dreamy days of Indian Summer” was no less absurd than to undertake “to paint the splendor of many-colored drapery in an Oriental crowd,” then “considered a legitimate subject for the artist who has a correct eye for color.” Jasper Cropsey was chief among the artists whom Benjamin saw as capable of seizing “these autumnal displays with fine feeling and excellent judgment,” and he extolled Cropsey’s paintings as “remarkable for their truth and artistic beauty.” Dedicated to the notion that the distinctiveness of the American landscape shone forth best when the wilderness was clothed in the brilliant colors of autumn, Cropsey painted fall scenery...

JOHN FREDERICK KENSETT (1816-1872) Woodland Waterfall Oil on canvas 14 x 12 inches Signed lower right