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Hudson River School Art

HUDSON RIVER SCHOOL STYLE

Considered the first major American painting movement, the Hudson River School emerged in the first half of the 19th century with landscape paintings that celebrated the young country’s natural beauty. Most of its leading painters were based in New York City where they exchanged ideas and traveled to the nearby Hudson River Valley and Catskills Mountains to re-create their vistas. At a time when the city was increasingly dense, the Hudson River School artists extolled the vast and pristine qualities of the American landscape, a sentiment that would inform the conservation movement.

American art was dominated by portraiture and historical scenes before Thomas Cole, the founder of the Hudson River School, began painting the Catskill Mountains in 1825. While the Hudson River School was informed by European art aesthetics, particularly the British focus on the sublime in nature, it was a style imbued with nationalism. The landscape painters who followed and studied under Cole would expand their focus from the Northeastern United States to places across the country, their work shared through prints and portfolios promoting an appreciation for the American wilderness — Niagara Falls, the mountain ranges that dot the American West and more — as the style blossomed during the mid-19th century.

Cole’s student Frederic Edwin Church as well as painters such as Albert Bierstadt, John Frederick Kensett, Asher Brown Durand and others became prominent proponents of the Hudson River School. The American art movement also had close ties to the literary world, including to authors like William Cullen Bryant, Henry David Thoreau and James Fenimore Cooper who wrote on similar themes. Although by the early 1900s the style had waned, and modernism would soon guide the following decades of art in the United States, the Hudson River School received renewed interest in the late 20th century for the dramatic way its artists portrayed the world.

Find a collection of authentic Hudson River School paintings, drawings and watercolors and more art on 1stDibs.

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Style: Hudson River School
River Landscape
Located in New York, NY
Signed lower right: L.W.Prentice.
Category

19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Oil, Panel

Homeward Bound
Located in New York, NY
Signed lower right: W Whittredge
Category

19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Oil

Night Glow
Located in New York, NY
Ralph Albert Blakelock was a romanticist American painter known primarily for his landscape paintings related to the Tonalism movement.
Category

19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Oil

Hudson River School Style Painting, c. 1900
Located in New York, NY
Untitled, c. 1900 Oil on canvas 16 x 24 in. Framed: 22 3/4 x 31 x 2 in. Signed lower right
Category

Early 1900s Hudson River School Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Road-Side View (View in Wisconsin)
Located in New York, NY
Label on stretcher bar: No. 175. / AMERICAN ART-UNION. /Road-Side View / Painted by / Seth Eastman / Distributed December 20, 1850.
Category

19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Oil

Portrait of Woman with Jewelry
Located in Fredericksburg, VA
Richard Clague was sent to school in Geneva to study painting with Jean-Charles Ferdinand Humbert (1813-1881) where Richard developed a preference for landscape painting. Following his father's death in December, 1836, he received a substantial inheritance which allowed him to continue his studies. After completing his studies, he travelled to Morocco, Algiers and other destinations in the Middle East where he kept a sketchbook (now in the New Orleans Museum of Art, Louisiana) and developed an interest in Oriental subject matter. Although he was largely trained in Europe, he settled in Louisiana, becoming part of the "Bayou School".He regularly painted with William Buck...
Category

Mid-19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Oil Landscape of Waterfall
Located in Fredericksburg, VA
Wall was born in Ireland and arrived in New York in 1812. He was already a well trained artist and soon became well known for his watercolor views of the Hudson River Valley and surr...
Category

Early 19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Oil, Panel

Oil Still Life of Apples
By George Harvey
Located in Fredericksburg, VA
George Harvey was born in 1800 in Tottenham, England but moved to the United states at 20 years old and spent several years in the west before he established himself in New York City...
Category

Mid-19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Oil landscape of Autumn Forest
Located in Fredericksburg, VA
This Hudson River School autumn landscape is done by the famed artist David Johnson. He studied at the national Academy of Design in New York. He was best known for the development o...
Category

Mid-19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

The Trout Pool
Located in Bryn Mawr, PA
Provenance Collection of Mrs. Victor R. Bieber, Gwynedd, Pennsylvania Born in Ohio, Worthington Thomas Whittredge began his career as a sign and portrait painter in Cincinnati, wher...
Category

1870s Hudson River School Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Autumn Stroll, 1885 by Hudson River School artist Thomas B. Craig (1849-1924)
Located in New York, NY
Painted by Hudson River School artist Thomas B. Craig (1849-1924), "Autumn Stroll along the River Path" is oil on canvas and measures 20 x 16 inches. The...
Category

19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Fishermen by a Brook by Charles Wilson Knapp (American, 1823-1900)
By Charles Wilson Knapp
Located in New York, NY
Hudson River School artist Charles Wilson Knapp's (1823-1900) "Fisherman by a Brook" is oil on canvas and measures 24 x 20 inches. The work is signed by Knapp at the lower left. The ...
Category

19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

On the Hudson Looking North
Located in New York, NY
Signed and dated lower left: J. W. Hill / 1867; on verso: On The Hudson – Looking North
Category

19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Pencil, Watercolor

Wakechai (Crouching Eagle) A Saukie Chief Lithograph with Applied Watercolor
Located in Soquel, CA
1842 Wakechai (Crouching Eagle) A Saukie Indian Chief Lithograph with Applied Watercolor The lithograph depicts Wakechai, also known as Crouching Eagle, who was a member of the Sauk and Fox delegation. King renders Wakechai with exceptional detail. The Saukie Chief is adorned with fine accoutrements such as a white fur robe...
Category

1840s Hudson River School Art

Materials

Watercolor, Laid Paper, Lithograph

“View of Mount Shasta, California”
Located in Southampton, NY
Beautiful original pastel on archival paper of Mount Shasta in Northern California by the well known Hudson River artist, George Douglas. Signed and dated 1874 lower right. Condition is excellent. Recently professionally matted and framed in a antique silver style gallery frame. Overall framed measurements are 27 by 36 inches. Under glass. Provenance: A Pennsylvania collector. George Douglas Brewerton received lessons in art from Prof. Robert W. Weir at West Point where his father was Superintendent. In 1874, he was detailed to San Francisco as an officer in the Stevenson Regiment. In 1848, he underwent many adventures in Western deserts and mountains with Kit Carson, who crossed the country with news of the California Gold Rush. After serving as an aide to Gen. Rufus Saxton during the Civil War, Brewerton called himself “Colonel,” although he never received an army commission...
Category

1870s Hudson River School Art

Materials

Pastel, Archival Paper

Low Tide, Crab Gathering by Artist William Richardson Tyler (1825-1896)
Located in New York, NY
Painted by Hudson River School artist William Richardson Tyler, "Low Tide, Crab Gathering" is oil on canvas and measures 8 x 13 inches. The painting is signed by Tyler at the lower l...
Category

19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

John Ridge, A Cherokee Indian & Interpreter Lithograph with Applied Watercolor
Located in Soquel, CA
1838 John Ridge A Cherokee Indian and Interpreter Lithograph with Applied Watercolor The lithograph depicts John Ridge, a Cherokee interpreter, by Charles Bird King (American, 1785 - 1862), published 1838. Compared to other indian portraits in tribal regalia, King's rendering of John Ridge appears to be different. King portrayed John Ridge in Anglo-American clothing, sitting at a desk with a document and pen in hand—hinting at Ridge’s education and career as tribal leader and politician. King was known for his realistic and sensitive renderings of his sitters, and his ability to capture their physical features and attire with dignity and attention to detail. Condition: Good; tonal aging due to age; previous mat tonal aging marks Presented in new conservation mat Paper size: 19.75"H X 14"W Image size: 15"H x 10"W Mat size:24"H x 16"W John Ridge received his education at Foreign Mission School in Cornwall, Connecticut and served as clerk of the Cherokee National Council. When King painted...
Category

1840s Hudson River School Art

Materials

Watercolor, Laid Paper, Lithograph

Indian Summer
By John Williamson
Located in New York, NY
Monogrammed and dated lower right: JW. 71; on verso: Indian Summer / By Jw. Williamson / N. Y. 1871 –
Category

19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Oil

Indian Encampment
Located in New York, NY
Signed lower left in arrowhead: R. A. Blakelock
Category

19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Oil

Summer Hills, Hunter Mountain
Located in New York, NY
Dated lower right: Sept. 67
Category

19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Oil

Niagara Falls
Located in New York, NY
Signed lower left: R. Gignoux
Category

19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Oil

Mount Etna from Catania
Located in New York, NY
Prominent Luminist Hudson River School painter.
Category

19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Oil

Pleasant Thoughts oil painting by Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait
Located in Hudson, NY
This painting is listed in the W.H. Cadbury and H.F. Marsh book Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait: Artist in the Adirondacks, Newark, Delaware, 1986, no.59.36t. It is hand-signed "AF Tait...
Category

1850s Hudson River School Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Ka-Na-Pi-Ma, An Ottowa Chief Hand-Colored Lithograph
Located in Soquel, CA
KA-NA-PI-MA, AN OTTAWA CHIEF., from History of the Indian the Indian Tribes of North America, ca. 1842, hand-colored lithograph The lithograph by Charles Bird King depicts Ka-na-pi...
Category

1840s Hudson River School Art

Materials

Watercolor, Laid Paper, Lithograph

Lake in the Mountains
Located in New York, NY
Signed and dated lower left: D. F. Bigelow / 70
Category

19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

"Gooseberries, " Levi Wells Prentice, Hudson River School Forest Still Life
Located in New York, NY
Levi Wells Prentice (1851 - 1935) Gooseberries, circa 1899 Oil on canvas 6 1/4 x 12 1/4 inches Signed lower right Provenance: Donna Schlesak, Burlington, Wisconsin Self-taught ar...
Category

1890s Hudson River School Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

A Summer Gathering
By Ambrose Andrews
Located in Saratoga Springs, NY
Signed lower right. An itinerant portrait, miniature, and landscape painter, Ambrose Andrews had a wide-ranging career geographically that saw him in many regions including New York (1829-31), Connecticut (1837), Texas (1837-1841) and Louisiana (1841-42). After 1844, he was active in St. Louis, New York City, Buffalo, New York, Vermont and Canada. He was born in West Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and in 1824, attended the National Academy of Design. Andrews exhibited paintings at the Republic of Texas Capitol...
Category

19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

19th Century White Mountain Landscape, Unknown American School
Located in New York, NY
Unknown White Mountain Artist White Mountain Landscape, 19th Century Oil on board 5 x 9 1/4 in. Framed: 7 3/4 x 11 3/4 in.
Category

19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Oil, Board

Marco Aurelio Tricca Pastoral Landscape Oil, 1929
Located in Astoria, NY
Marco Aurelio Tricca (American, 1880-1969), Pastoral Landscape Scene, Oil on Canvas mounted on Board, 1929, signed and dated to verso, carved wood frame. Image: 24" H x 30" W; frame:...
Category

Early 20th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Cattle by the Sea, c. 1867 by Ann Sophia Towne Darrah (American, 1819-1881)
Located in New York, NY
"Cattle by the Sea," c. 1867 by historic woman artist Ann Sophia Towne Darrah (American, 1819-1881) was exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1867. Painted in oil...
Category

19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Oil, Canvas

Picnic in the Vineyard Spring Contemporary French Impressionist Style Landscape
By Alexandr Rapoport
Located in Soquel, CA
Spring Picnic in the Vineyard, Contemporary Impressionist Landscape Beautiful oil painting of a variety of fruits with cups in a field of grass by Alexander Rapoport (Russian-Ameri...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Hudson River School Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil, Illustration Board

Mountain Lake Landscape
By Joseph Kleitsch
Located in Soquel, CA
Southern California Lake. Signed "J Kleitsch," which could possibly be by Joseph Kleitsch. Oil on canvas in a period giltwood frame. Image size, 16"H x 28"L. Joseph Kleitsch was c...
Category

1920s Hudson River School Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil, Stretcher Bars

Antique American Hudson River School Panoramic Vista View Oil On Paper Painting
Located in Buffalo, NY
Antique American Hudson River School panoramic landscape oil painting. Oil on paper. Framed. Apparently unsigned. Image size, 13L x 8.5H.
Category

1870s Hudson River School Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Antique 1860s Hudson River School Gilt Frame with Egg-and-Dart and Bead Molding
Located in Jacksonville, FL
A beautifully preserved example of mid-19th-century American frame craftsmanship, this giltwood frame from the 1860s reflects the classical elegance favored by the Hudson River Schoo...
Category

Late 19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Wood

“View of Mount Shasta, California”
Located in Southampton, NY
Original pastel on heavy card stock (made in Paris) by the well known Hudson River artist, George Douglas Brewerton. A view of Mount Shasta in Northern California. Signed lower left. Circa 1880. Condition is excellent. The artwork is housed in its original scroll decorated frame. Overall framed measurements are 33.25 by 19 inches. Provenance: A East Coast Florida estate. George Douglas Brewerton received lessons in art from Prof. Robert W. Weir at West Point where his father was Superintendent. In 1874, he was detailed to San Francisco as an officer in the Stevenson Regiment. In 1848, he underwent many adventures in Western deserts and mountains with Kit Carson, who crossed the country with news of the California Gold Rush. After serving as an aide to Gen. Rufus Saxton during the Civil War, Brewerton called himself “Colonel,” although he never received an army commission...
Category

1870s Hudson River School Art

Materials

Pastel, Archival Paper

Children Feeding the Horse
Located in Fredericksburg, VA
This captivating artwork, titled "Children Feeding the Horse", is masterfully executed in rich tones. It depicts two children tenderly feeding a gentle white horse against a familiar...
Category

Mid-19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Oil, Panel

Oil Sunset titled "Virginia Sunset"
Located in Fredericksburg, VA
William H. Langworthy (1836–1900) was an American painter known for his contributions to landscape and genre painting during the late 19th century. Little is known about Langworthy's...
Category

Mid-19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

“Seaside Cliffs, California”
Located in Southampton, NY
Beautiful original pastel on archival card stock from Paris of the craggy seaside cliffs of California by the well known Hudson River artist, George Douglas Bremerton. Signed lower left. Circa 1880. Condition is excellent. Under glass. The artwork is housed in its original ornate scroll designed frame. Overall framed measurements are 33 by 19 inches. Provenance: A East Coast Florida estate. George Douglas Brewerton received lessons in art from Prof. Robert W. Weir at West Point where his father was Superintendent. In 1874, he was detailed to San Francisco as an officer in the Stevenson Regiment. In 1848, he underwent many adventures in Western deserts and mountains with Kit Carson, who crossed the country with news of the California Gold Rush. After serving as an aide to Gen. Rufus Saxton during the Civil War, Brewerton called himself “Colonel,” although he never received an army commission...
Category

1870s Hudson River School Art

Materials

Pastel, Archival Paper

Oil Rain Landscape Titled "Passing Shower"
Located in Fredericksburg, VA
George Smillie (1840-1921) was an American landscape painter renowned for his serene and meticulously detailed depictions of the natural world. Smillie’s work is characterized by its...
Category

Late 19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Antique American Hudson River School Colosseum Italian Oil Painting Landscape
Located in Buffalo, NY
Antique American Hudson River School artist working in Italy. Oil on canvas. Framed nicely. No signature found.
Category

1860s Hudson River School Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Trees and Fields, Print Club of Cleveland
Located in Berlin, MD
“Trees and Fields” lithograph commissioned for the Print Club of Cleveland by Peter Takal Peter Takal’s original lithograph “Trees and Fields” is an accomplished work of art created in 1957. This lithograph bears the stamp “The Print Club of Cleveland” on verso. This impression is signed by Takal in pencil. “Trees and Fields” is a fine example of the art created by the 20th century Romanian / German / American artist, Peter Takal. Peter Takal: Born in Romania in 1905, Peter Takal spent most of his youth in Berlin and was mainly self-taught. His first one-man exhibition took place in the Gurlitt Gallery, Berlin, in 1932. During the following seven years his art was frequently exhibited at galleries in Berlin, Munich, Paris and as well as Casablanca and Algiers. At the beginning of the Second World War (1939), Peter Takal came to the United States for an exhibition of his art at the Katherine Kuhe Gallery, Chicago. He decided to remain in the United States and became an American citizen in 1944. Living in New York, Peter Takal quickly established himself as a leading printmaker and a modern master of both lithography and drypoint engraving. One-man exhibitions of his art took place in New York City (1942), Chicago (1939 & 1941), Washington (1959) and Los Angeles (1966). International exhibitions of his art were held at the Galeria de Arte Mexicano, Mexico City (1959), the Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, Italy (1960) and at the Kestner-Museum in Germany (1962). Museums to date that include Peter Takal's original prints in their collections are, the Chicago Art Institute, the Library of Congress, Washington, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the United States State Department, UCLA, the Berlin National Museum and the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris. Over the years, the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Arkansas Arts Center have acquired a very extensive collection of Peter Takal's lithographs and drypoints. The artist died in 1995. The Print Club of Cleveland: The Print Club of Cleveland is a non-profit adjunct organization and the country's first museum-affiliated print club devoted to the promotion of art and printmaking as a fine art for printmakers and collectors alike. With its creation in 1919, it has helped to support the growth of the department of prints and drawings at the Cleveland Museum of Fine Arts and has also been a source of great enrichment for collectors of fine prints. During the organizations long history, the club has annually commissioned one original etching engraving, lithograph, woodcut and or other form of original graphic art from such fine American artists as John Taylor Arms, Suzanne Anker, Luigi Lucioni, Will Barnet, Mark Tobey, Lyonel Feininger, Henry George Keller, Louis Lozowick, Karl Schrag, David Jansheski, Deborah Remington, and Peter Takal, as well as from leading international artists such as Henri Matisse, Edmund Blampied, Jean-Emile Laboureur, Salvador Dali, Michael di Cerbo, Phyliss Sloane, Paolo Boni, Juvenal Sanso...
Category

Mid-20th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Lithograph

Yellowstone Geyser
Located in Fredericksburg, VA
This painting by Howard Russell Butler captures the serene, almost mystical presence of a Yellowstone geyser in a moment of stillness. Known for his ability to portray the grandeur o...
Category

Early 20th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Oil, Board

Oil River Landscape
Located in Fredericksburg, VA
This 19th-century American School river landscape painting by an unknown artist embodies the essence of the era’s reverence for nature and the burgeoning national identity. These wor...
Category

Mid-19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Oil, Board

On the Beach at Long Branch - The Children's Hour
Located in Fairlawn, OH
On the Beach at Long Branch - The Children's Hour Wood engraving, 1874 Published in "Harper's Weekly" August 15, 1874 (p. 672) Image size: 9 1/4 x 13 5/8 inches Provenance: Wunderlic...
Category

1870s Hudson River School Art

Materials

Woodcut

Fourteen Mile Island, Lake George
By Andrew Fisher Bunner
Located in Saratoga Springs, NY
Andrew Fisher Bunner ANA 1841-1897 Andrew Fisher Bunner was born in 1841 in New York City, and he studied there and in Europe. In fact, his career included extended travels in Fra...
Category

19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Oil, Canvas

Mid Century Monument Valley Desert Landscape -- Navajo Hogan and Rug Loom
Located in Soquel, CA
Substantial and period mid-century landscape of Monument Valley, Arizona of Navajo Hogan and rug weaving loom by Ralph Holmes (American, 1876-1963). c.194...
Category

1940s Hudson River School Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Autumn River with Punt in the Reeds by M.J. Walters (American, 1837-1883)
Located in New York, NY
Painted by Hudson River School artist Mary Josephine Walters (1837-1883), "Autumn River with Punt in the Reeds" is oil on canvas and measures 13.25 x 23.75 inches. It is inscribed in...
Category

19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

The Rapelye Homestead, Bowery Bay, Long Island
Located in New York, NY
Signed and dated lower left: W.R. Miller. 1877.
Category

Late 19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Oil Landscape of the Columbia River Gorge
Located in Fredericksburg, VA
"Columbia River Gorge" by Cyrenius Hall is a quintessential example of the Hudson River School. Hall, known for his masterful landscapes, captures the awe-inspiring grandeur of the C...
Category

Mid-19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Bathing at Long Branch-“Oh, Ain’t it Cold”
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Bathing at Long Branch-“Oh, Ain’t it Cold” Wood engraving, 1871 Signed in the block with the artist's initials "WH", see photo Published in: Every Saturday, Aug. 16, 1871 Condition: ...
Category

1870s Hudson River School Art

Materials

Woodcut

St. Valentine's Day -- The Old Story in All Lands
Located in Fairlawn, OH
St. Valentine's Day -- The Old Story in All Lands Wood engraving, 1868 Published in: Harper's Weekly, February 22, 1868 Titled and signed in the block Image size: 13 5/8 x 9 inches C...
Category

1860s Hudson River School Art

Materials

Engraving

Fishing Along the Meder River at the edge of Vic, Spain
Located in Fredericksburg, VA
Samuel Coleman's "Fishing Along the Meder River at the Edge of Vic, Spain" is a captivating painting that beautifully captures both the charm of the riverside, and the beauty of the ...
Category

Mid-19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Oil, Board

"Building the Allegheny Railroad, Pennsylvania" Alfred Wall, Scalp Level School
Located in New York, NY
Alfred S. Wall (American, 1825-1896) Untitled (Building the Railroad), 1859 Oil on canvas 14 1/2 x 18 1/2 inches Signed and dated lower left For Christmas, 2008, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette featured Alfred Wall's painting, Old Saw Mill from the collection of the Westmoreland Museum of American Art in Greensburg, PA. It was painted in 1851 in the town of Lilly, Pennsylvania in the Allegheny Mountains. The newspaper description stated that "though the saw mill is long gone, it still conveys all the warmth and coziness of this time of year. The article, written by Patricia Lowry, continued: At first glance, Alfred S. Wall's painting of a saw mill in snowy woods triggers nostalgia for the coziness of a log cabin, the smell of a wood-burning fire and the warming of chilled hands and feet beside it. But as sentimental as it seems on the surface, Mr. Wall's painting has a deeper and unexpected context. This is more than a painting about sled-riding children and early industry planted in the middle of virgin forest. Intended or not, this is a painting about conquering the great divide of the Allegheny Mountains. For the third consecutive year, the Post-Gazette features a winter-scene painting on the cover of the Christmas Day newspaper. This year's painting, Old Saw Mill, was selected by co-publisher and editor-in-chief John Robinson Block and executive editor David Shribman during a visit to the Westmoreland Museum of American Art in Greensburg. Mr. Wall, listed as a portrait painter in the 1850 census, was about 26 when he painted Old Saw Mill in 1851. The self-taught artist was born in Mount Pleasant, Westmoreland County, to William and Lucy Wall, who'd emigrated from England around 1820. An artistic sensibility ran in the family: William was a sculptor who carved ornate tombstones here; Alfred's children, A. Bryan and Bessie, were landscape painters, as was Alfred's older brother, William Coventry Wall. For more than a century the Walls formed a prominent art dynasty in Pittsburgh, and Alfred, eventually a partner in the city's most prestigious art gallery, was well known as a painter, dealer and restorer. In Old Saw Mill, two wood cutters, each holding an axe, meet outside the mill; one points in the direction of the forest. On the other side of the stream, one child pulls another down the hillside on a sled. Just behind the hill's slope, the roof of a building appears, perhaps the home of the sawyer. The luminous, late afternoon light comes from the northwest, casting lengthening shadows on the snow under a darkening sky. The saw mill in "Old Saw Mill" likely would have been impossible to track down had Mr. Wall, presumably, not written on the back of the painting: "old saw mill near Jct. 4, Portage RR, Pa." "There was no Junction 4," said Mike Garcia, park ranger at the Allegheny Portage Railroad National Historic Site, about 90 miles east of Pittsburgh near Gallitzen, Cambria County. "But there was an Inclined Plane No. 4 at Lilly, and there was a saw mill there." In fact, there were at least six saw mills at Lilly over the years, said longtime resident Jim Salony, president of the Lilly-Washington Historical Society. But when he saw an image of the painting, Mr. Salony had no trouble coming up with a location. While there are no known photographs of the saw mill, he believes it stood near the intersection of Portage and Washington streets, next to Bear Rock Run. Mr. Salony, retired academic dean at Mount Aloysius College, didn't know exactly when the mill was torn down, but it's been gone since at least the late 1800s. He was pleased to learn of the painting, even though that knowledge came too late for inclusion in a new book about Lilly, The Spirit of a Community, for which he served as primary author and editor. It runs to more than 700 pages. For a little town -- population 869 last year -- Lilly has a lot of history. Nestled in a bowl on the western slope of the Allegheny Mountains about 3 miles south of Cresson, Lilly was first settled in 1806 by Joseph Meyer and his family, who named their 332-acre land patent Dundee. Although the Meyers had left by 1811, other settlers followed, but the community didn't flourish until the 1830s, when the Allegheny Portage Railroad began its 23-year-run through the town. For 200 years the Alleghenies had stood as an impediment to trade and travel between Pittsburgh and the east. A canal from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh would change that and compete with New York's Erie Canal. But a portage railroad would have to be built, on which teams of horses would lead the canal boats over the mountains. Engineer Sylvester Welch began his surveying from the small settlement at Lilly. The railroad would require 10 inclined planes, some quite steep, between Hollidaysburg and Johnstown. To build it, trees had to be cut along a 120-foot-wide right-of-way for 36 miles, along which track and engine houses had to be built. William Brown, who owned the saw mill on Bear Rock Run, built at least one of the engine houses at Inclined Plane No. 4; an 1834 contract also included fencing the dwelling lots at the head and foot of the plane. Lilly is located at what was the foot of Inclined Plane No. 4., giving the community one of its early informal names, Foot of Four. Named in 1883 for Richard Lilly, who'd completed the grist mill there, Lilly had another early name: Hemlock, so dubbed by a Portage Railroad traveler who smelled the bark stripped from the trees at the saw mill. Because there isn't another Allegheny Portage Railroad location like it, where a cut in the mountains opens into a bowl, Mr. Salony thinks it was Lilly that Charles Dickens wrote about following his trip from Harrisburg to Pittsburgh on the Pennsylvania Canal in late March 1842, describing what he saw after emerging from "the bottom of the cut": "It was very pretty while traveling, to look down into a valley full of light and softness, catching glimpses through the tree-tops of scattered cabins; children running to the doors; dogs bursting out to bark, who we could see without hearing; terrified pigs scampering homeward; families sitting out in their rude gardens; cows gazing upward with a stupid indifference; men in their shirt-sleeves looking on at their unfinished houses, planning out to-morrow's work; and we riding onward, high above them, like a whirlwind." To get to Lilly, Mr. Wall may have taken the Pennsylvania Canal from his home in Allegheny City, now the North Side. He'd married young, at 21, to Sarah Carr in 1846, the same year he began his career as an artist. By 1880 they were living in a brick townhouse at 104 (later 814) Arch St., now demolished. Across the river in Pittsburgh he shared a studio at 67 Fourth Ave. with his brother William; they later moved to Burke's Building, today the city's oldest office building at 209-211 Fourth. But often they worked outdoors, sometimes as part of the colony of artists that grew up around painter George Hetzel beginning in the late 1860s at Scalp Level...
Category

1850s Hudson River School Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

"Mt. Rosalie, Colorado" Albert Bierstadt, Western American Mountain Landscape
Located in New York, NY
Albert Bierstadt Mt. Rosalie, Colorado, circa 1863 Signed lower left: ABierstadt; inscribed on verso: Mt. Rosalie / Colorado Oil on paper 13 1/4 x 9 1/2 inches Provenance Private Co...
Category

1860s Hudson River School Art

Materials

Paper, Oil

"A Quiet Afternoon" Enoch Wood Perry, Genre Scene Mother and Child Interior
By Enoch Wood Perry Jr.
Located in New York, NY
Enoch Wood Perry, Jr. (1831 - 1915) A Quiet Afternoon, 1876 Oil on canvas 15 1/4 x 21 inches Signed and dated lower right Born in 1831 in Boston, Enoch Wood Perry, Jr, is internati...
Category

1870s Hudson River School Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Pastoral Landscape titled "Cows Resting"
Located in Fredericksburg, VA
James McDougal Hart (1828-1901) was a prominent American landscape painter and a key figure in the Hudson River School. His landscapes are characterized by their serene and idyllic q...
Category

Late 18th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

A Thunder Shower on Lago Maggiore, North Italy
By Thomas Ralph Spence
Located in Fredericksburg, VA
Thomas Ralph Spence’s "A Thunder Shower on Lago Maggiore, North Italy" captures a dramatic moment of nature’s power over the serene landscape of Lago Maggiore. Known for his architec...
Category

Late 19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Oil, Board

"Couple in the Field, " James Brade Sword, Hunter on Farm Landscape
By James Brade Sword
Located in New York, NY
James Brade Sword (1839 - 1915) Couple in the Field Oil on canvas 16 x 20 inches Signed lower left After a childhood in Macao, China, James Brade Sword started out in life, after hi...
Category

Late 19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Hudson River School art for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Hudson River School art available for sale on 1stDibs. Works in this style were very popular during the 21st Century and Contemporary, but contemporary artists have continued to produce works inspired by this movement. If you’re looking to add art created in this style to introduce contrast in an otherwise neutral space in your home, the works available on 1stDibs include elements of blue, orange, purple and other colors. Many Pop art paintings were created by popular artists on 1stDibs, including Ralph Albert Blakelock, Jane Bloodgood-Abrams, Jasper Francis Cropsey, and John Frederick Kensett. Frequently made by artists working with Paint, and Oil Paint and other materials, all of these pieces for sale are unique and have attracted attention over the years. Not every interior allows for large Hudson River School art, so small editions measuring 2 inches across are also available. Prices for art made by famous or emerging artists can differ depending on medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $400 and tops out at $875,000, while the average work sells for $13,267.

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