George Inness

[with]Joseph A. Safron, St. Louis, Missouri, circa 1974-78
Private collection, 1978
[with]Heinley Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts, 2000
Acquired by the present owner from the above

(possibly) "Fine Arts," The Evening Post, New York, October 13, 1866, p. 1
LeRoy Ireland, Works of George Inness: An Illustrated Catalogue Raisonné, Austin, Texas, 1965, no. 1130, p. 280, illustrated
American Art Review, vol. I, no. 5, July-October 1974, p. 15, illustrated
Antiques, vol. 158, no. 5, November 2000, p. 665, illustrated
Michael Quick, George Inness: A Catalogue Raisonné, vol. 1, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 2007, no. 581, p. 508, illustrated p. 509

According to Michael Quick, "[Leroy] Ireland ventured a date of ca. 1884 for this painting and two similar ones (cat. 580 and unlocated Ireland no. 1128), perhaps because of the composition's general similarity to the large Niagara Falls (cat. 822) of that year. This kind of formal landscape of recognizable scenery, however, is so rare among Inness's work after 1880 that it has to be viewed as a great exception and contrary to the basic direction of the artist's later work. However, this kind of scenic landscape and this approach to composition, with a dark foreground mass in front of a distant landscape, are entirely characteristic of most of Inness's Italian and French views painted in Paris and soon afterward in Boston. A few mentions in the Boston Evening Transcript indicate that Inness spent at least part of the summer of 1876 sketching 'in the valley back of the Palisades' in New Jersey, and a Newark newspaper reported that Inness showed an admired A View on the Hudson in a loan exhibition in Newark in December 1876. This view apparently looks from New Jersey toward Manhattan, specifically toward the place where the Harlem River flows into the Hudson. With few adjustments it follows a highly detailed study that was apparently made in the field (cat. 580). This is a highly finished landscape, its nuances of shapes, textures, and lighting worked out with glazing and numerous fine adjustments, such as the extremely thin tan paint that adds a sense of cloud shadow on the blue water. The foreground color is rich, rather than strong, with thin red over light blue in the foreground rocks, for instance. This quality in the exceptionally full but muted color also may point to a date during the Eagleswood period, even though this type of composition would be unusual then. In October 1866 Inness reportedly was working in his studio on 'a striking picture of the Hudson River as seen from the Palisades. The subject is a bold one, and is handled in the artist's masterly manner'" (as quoted in George Inness: A Catalogue Raisonné, vol. 1, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 2007, p. 508).