Samuel Colman

Vance Jordan Fine Art Inc., New York (titled Colorado Landscape)

Christie's, New York, 30 November 1999, lot 82

Acquired from the above by the present owner

Raised in New York City, and exhibiting at the National Academy of Design for the first time in 1850 at the age of nineteen, Colman was part of a burgeoning American landscape painting tradition following in the footsteps of Thomas Cole and Asher Brown Durand (who may have been his teacher). In addition to travelling in Europe in the 1860s, Colman made multiple visits to the American West beginning in the 1870s. The present work has been previously sold as a view of Colorado. Colman painted landscapes of the state during his penultimate visit West in 1888. The state was settled following the Pike's Peak Gold Rush of 1858-62, and accepted into the Union on 1 August 1876. If the landscape illustrates Colorado, Colman depicts the state's eponymous character, "colorado" being the Spanish adjective for "ruddy."