Fine Books and Manuscripts, Including Selections from the Collection of Barbara and Ira Lipman

Fine Books and Manuscripts, Including Selections from the Collection of Barbara and Ira Lipman

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 157. Bierstadt, Albert | Bierstadt's iconic rendering of the Rocky Mountains.

Bierstadt, Albert | Bierstadt's iconic rendering of the Rocky Mountains

Lot Closed

December 16, 09:37 PM GMT

Estimate

5,000 - 7,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

Bierstadt, Albert

The Rocky Mountains (Lander's Peak). New York: Edward Bierstadt, 1866


Steel engraving (image size including text: 425 x 708 mm; sheet size: 619 x 864 mm). By James Smillie, and signed by him in pencil, after the painting completed in 1863. 


James Smillie's engraving of a Bierstadt masterpiece


In 1859, Bierstadt joined an expedition to the West led by Colonel Frederick W. Lander. This work was painted four years later in New York as a tribute to Lander who died in 1862 after a distinguished military career. Bierstadt found it fitting to name the central summit in memory of his fallen friend.


The painting was a huge success and was quickly bought by the English railroad magnate James McHenry for $25,000. Its beauty lies in Bierstadt's faithful delineation of the Shoshone Indian village encampment and carefully rendered foliage in the foreground with a middle distance featuring a reflective body of water and the exaggerated snow-capped peak in the background towering over the scene. It perfectly embodies the idea of Manifest Destiny and appealed to the imaginations of most Americans who had only read about our untamed frontier. The oil painting is in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.


Due to its huge popular success, Bierstadt immediately asked James Smillie, America's premier engraver, to produce an engraving. However, it was not until December 1866, after three laborious years in the making, that this engraving was published.


REFERENCE

Nancy Anderson and Linda S. Ferber, Albert Bierstadt Art & Enterprise, pp. 272-273, number 77, illustrated figure 80.