Jasper Francis Cropsey

Martin J. Cooley, by 1864
Private collection (sold: Sotheby's, New York, May 25, 1988, lot 18)
Acquired by the present owner at the above sale

"National Academy of Design - Thirty-Ninth Annual Exhibition," The New Path 2, May 25, 1864, p. 9
"National Academy of Design, Second Article," New York Evening Post, May 28, 1864, p. 1 
"Town Gossip," Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, June 11, 1864, p. 178
Kenneth W. Maddox and Anthony M. Speiser, Jasper Francis Cropsey: Catalogue Raisonné, Works in Oil 1864-1884, vol. I, Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, 2013, no. 751, pp. 385-86

According to Kenneth W. Maddox and Anthony M. Speiser, "This picture of Maria Cropsey's family home, which was situated on the southwest corner of Greenwood Lake, was painted shortly after the Cropseys returned from their seven-year sojourn in England. When this painting was displayed at the National Academy of Design, the critic for Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, who felt that most of the works in the 1864  exhibition were 'little better than trash--absolute trash,' found this painting, which was entitled The Homestead, Greenwood Lake, among the few exceptions: 'Among the landscapes are several, by Cropsey, taken of Greenwood Lake, a beautiful spot in Orange county, N.Y., little known, but destined to be under such penciling.' The writer for The New Path was also pleased with Cropsey's pictures of Greenwood Lake: 'It does almost as much good as a journey into the country. We thank Mr. Cropsey for his pictures, and for the pleasure and satisfaction we find in them, each visit we make to the Academy.'"