?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 20,000 - $ 30,000
JAMES D. SMILLIE (after Albert Bierstadt) The Rocky Mountains (Lander's Peak).
Set of 12 engravings, progressive proofs, 1865-66. Each approximately 660x920 mm; 26x36 1/4 inches (sheets), full margins. Each but one of the engravings on Chine collé on sturdy, cream wove paper.
Three of the earliest proofs with incomplete shading: one of these signed by both Smillie and Bierstadt and dated "May 1865" in pencil; another signed by Smillie and dated "May 1865" in pencil, lower right; and the third signed by Smillie and dated "New York, August 10th 1865" in pencil, lower right.
The third through the eighth working proofs: one impression of the third proof; two impressions of the fourth proof; two impressions of the fifth proof; one impression of the sixth proof; two impressions of the seventh proof, one of which is signed and inscribed "one of the last working proofs" in pencil, lower right; and one impression of the eighth proof, signed and inscribed "Last working proof" in pencil, lower right. Each of these proofs inscribed "3rd pf." through "8th pf." in pencil, lower right.
This monumental engraving shows a Native American encampment at the foot of the Rocky Mountains where Bierstadt traveled in 1859 on a western expedition led by US Army Colonel Frederick W. Lander (1821-1862). Bierstadt created the celebrated painting (now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) on which this engraving was based four years after the expedition, following the Colonel's death during the Civil War, and named the Peak in honor of his friend
The painting was widely admired, as it aptly captured the mystique and beauty of the American West. It was sold by Bierstadt for the hefty sum of $25,000 in 1865, prompting the artist to commission an engraving after the composition. It took James D. Smillie (1833-1909) three years to craft and publish the grandiloquent print. Bierstadt closely monitored the design of the engraving, checking in on its progress in New York, sometimes daily, and requesting frequent proofs from the engraver.
