Albert Bierstadt 1830 - 1902

Private Collection, San Francisco
Michael Altman, New York
Neil Morris, New York, until 1986
Mickelson Gallery, Washington, D.C.
Acquired by the present owner from the above, 1986

Washington, D.C., Adams Davidson Galleries, The Artist as Explorer, Luminist Visions of 19th Century America, October-November 1986, illustrated

This work is in good condition. It is executed on paper laid down on canvas. Under UV: there is some inpainting along the extreme lower left and lower right edges, one spot in the mountain at center left, and a few scattered spots in the far upper right sky. There is a 2 ½ inch line of inpainting along ridge of the hill at lower center, and a few scattered pindot losses.
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On his third trip west, Albert Biertstadt arrived in California in July 1871 and stayed until 1873. The artist spent much of this time exploring and sketching the dramatic landscape of the state, but also had a studio built especially for him on Clay Street Hill in San Francisco. The studio was described in an article in The San Francisco Bulletin on January 11, 1873: "This house, with its windows opening in every quarter, commands a magnificent view of the city below, and of the bay, from the Golden Gate in the west, to Mount Diablo in the east, including the whole sweep of its varied shore line and studding islands. Here Mr. Bierstadt has been studying rise and sunset effects...The large window–as big as the side of the house–which gives him the north light painters always want, commands at one glance a view of the whole passage from the Pacific Ocean to the inner bay, with the peninsular and Marin county shores, including Mount Tamalpais, a distance of six or seven miles. The light from other and small windows is shut off with curtains when not desired. Turning from the large one–which we may call a perpendicular skylight–and from the beautiful nature picture it reveals, the visitor to Mr. Bierstadt's unique atelier sees on a canvass the picture produced by his art" (Gordon Hendricks, Albert Bierstadt: Painter of the American West, New York, 1974, pp. 224-25).