71

JASPER FRANCIS CROPSEY

American, 1823-1900

Autumn at Greenwood Lake, 1871

oil on canvas
signed and dated lower left "J.F. Cropsey 1871"
14 x 24 in. (35.6 x 61 cm.), Frame: 24 1/2 x 34 1/2 x 4 in. (62.2 x 87.6 x 10.2 cm.)

  • Provenance: Sotheby's, New York, New York, December 1, 1988, lot 24; Altman Burke Gallery, New York, New York; Vose Galleries, Boston, Massachusetts; Private Collection, North Carolina; A.J. Kollar Fine Paintings, LLC, Seattle, Washington; Debra Force Fine Art, New York, New York; Private Collection, Washington, 2010-2015; Private Collection, Washington
  • Literature: Kenneth Maddox and Anthony Speiser, "Jasper F. Cropsey: Catalogue Raisonné", Volume 2, 1864 - 1884 (Hastings-on-Hudson, New York: The Newington-Cropsey Foundation, 2019), p. 108, cat. no. 1029 (illustrated in color)
  • Notes: Jasper Cropsey trained as an architect, a profession which he exercised at various times throughout his life, but he turned to painting full-time in 1843. He soon became one of the leading landscape painters of the Hudson River School and was widely regarded as "America's painter of autumn."
    Following his marriage to Maria Cooley in 1847, Cropsey and his wife traveled to Europe on a Grand Tour until 1849. In Rome, Cropsey moved into the studio formerly occupied by Thomas Cole, an artist who influenced him greatly from the start of his career. On his return to America, he opened a studio in New York and traveled throughout New England to paint.
    Cropsey returned once again to Europe and lived in England from 1856 to 1863. During this time, he enjoyed the same success he had in America and in 1862 completed one of the most ambitious landscapes of his career, Autumn on the Hudson River, now in the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
    On his return to America in 1863, Cropsey's paintings illustrated his admiration for the luminist aesthetic inspired by the natural splendor around him. That same year, he built a Victorian-style residence named "Aladdin" next to Greenwood Lake, situated in a 45-acre property near Warwick, New York. This became the location and inspiration for many of his paintings in the 1860s and 1870s, which illustrate his masterful f luency in depicting the Hudson River Valley in all its natural splendor. The present work, dated 1871, is one of these paintings inspired by the beauty of Greenwood Lake in autumn.
    Autumn, with its rich colors, was a favored season among many 19th century American landscape painters. Cropsey specialized in painting the fall for half a century, and devoted himself almost exclusively to that theme in his later career.
  • Condition: in excellent overall condition; lined canvas; on a new stretcher; no inpainting apparent under UV; in an exceptional period frame

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