James Smillie
The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak

Public Domain

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Artist James SmillieAmerican, born Scotland, 1807–1885

Artistafter Albert Bierstadt American, born Germany, 1830–1902

CultureAmerican

Titles

The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak

Date1866

PlaceUnited States

MediumEngraving and etching on wove paper, proof before lettering

DimensionsPlate: 16 5/8 × 28 1/4 in. (42.2 × 71.8 cm)
Sheet: 23 1/2 × 34 in. (59.7 × 86.3 cm)
Frame (outer): 36 5/16 × 46 15/16 × 1 13/16 in. (92.2 × 119.2 × 4.6 cm)

Credit LineThe Bayou Bend Collection, museum purchase funded by John L. Nau III at "One Great Night in November, 2019"

Object numberB.2019.14

Not on view

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Department

Bayou Bend

Object Type

PRINTS

DescriptionAlbert Bierstadt was born in Solingen, Germany, in 1830. His family immigrated to the United States in 1832, settling in the Massachusetts whaling port of New Bedford, where his father’s trade as a cooper would have been in great demand to fill the hulls of whaling ships with oil. As a young man, Bierstadt demonstrated both great industriousness and a flair for showmanship. In 1853, he travelled to Düsseldorf to study art, remaining there for nearly three years. In 1859, he embarked on a survey expedition to the American West led by civil engineer and army officer Frederick W. Lander. Upon returning, Bierstadt established a studio in New York and began using his sketches from the expedition to create numerous paintings. The Rocky Mountains, Lander’s Peak (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) was the first of his great successes, and he quickly vaulted into the first rank of American landscape painters, capturing the public’s imagination with the vastness and scenic glory of the West. Bierstadt worked to campaign The Rocky Mountains, Lander’s Peak, as a “Great Picture,” the subject of a single-painting traveling exhibition accompanied by a pamphlet and reproduced as an engraving. To make the engraving, he engaged James Smillie, who had come to the United States from Scotland in 1829. Smillie’s son, James David Smillie, was to make a drawing of the work suitable for his father’s reference in making the engraving. This drawing, in turn, was to be based on a photograph that was to be supplied by Bierstadt’s brother, Edward Bierstadt. Though planning for the engraving began in 1863, the preparations were complicated by the painting’s being on tour, and the plate was not completed until 1866.
ProvenancePrivate collection, New England; purchased by [Donald A. Heald Rare Books, New York]; purchased by MFAH, 2019.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks

Recto: Printed within image, lower right: A Bierstadt/1863. [A and B conjoined]
Recto: Printed below image, center: ENTERED ACCORDING TO ACT OF CONGRESS IN THE YEAR 1866 BY EDWARD BIERSTADT IN THE CLERK’S OFFICE OF THE U. S. DISTRICT COURT FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK
Recto: Inscribed by hand in graphite below image, left: A. Bierstadt
Recto: Inscribed by hand in graphite below image, right: James Smillie

Recto: Inscribed by hand in graphite below image, left: A. Bierstadt [cursive]

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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