Bay Colony Antiques is proud to offer for sale this fantastic 19th century Antique Hudson River School American landscape painting. Prominent artists related to the Hudson River School include Thomas Cole, Asher Durand, Albert Bierstadt, Jasper Cropsey, Frederic Church, John Kensett, Julie Beers, Susie Barstow, Thomas Moran, and many more talented artists. Hudson River School paintings are extremely collectible and can be found in the best museums & private collections all across the United States. The Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford Connecticut houses an impressive Hudson River School collection and is only about 30 minutes away from our Massachusetts warehouse.
The painting is unsigned and depicts a tranquil scene along the Hudson River. If you could identify the location based on the notch in the mountains and the narrow inlet, the painting would significantly increase in value. There are nice visible brush strokes in the mountains and the sky looks pretty well developed. The trees in the foreground are exceptionally well executed and we love the felled tree front and center really highlighting a common theme in Hudson River School paintings, the juxtaposition of man & industry encroaching into an idyllic American landscape. There are two men farming the land at center and a few structures in the left background. There are a couple of additional structures in the right background that look like they could be on either a small island or peninsula and may be beneficial in helping identify the location of the scene. The painting is in its original carved oval frame that’s in pretty good condition. The frame was overpainted with a later gold paint, but most importantly the art itself is 100% completely undisturbed. We carefully took this out of the frame to see if we could locate any obscured signatures or inscriptions. We didn’t find any markings, but we did find the overall composition of the painting interesting. The painting was done on canvas and was sewn onto a paper board and a thin wood veneer with a salmon wash colored back. We inspected this under UV light and found no evidence of any alterations, inpainting, or repairs. The painting is at least 150 years old and is in wonderful untouched condition with our only notes being some slight inclinations to the canvas. The painting doesn’t appear to have ever been cleaned, and would greatly benefit from a professional cleaning which would bring back the subtle details in the sky and the reflections of the water. The overall dimension of the painting and frame are 17 1/4” wide x 15 1/4” tall x 1 3/4” deep. The sight size of the painting is 11 1/2” wide x 9 1/2” tall.
