Jun 20, 2002 - Sale 1940

Sale 1940 - Lot 397

Price Realized: $ 12,650
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 8,000 - $ 12,000
MORAN, THOMAS; after. Group of 3 chromolithographs by Prang extracted from Hayden's portfolio on Yellowstone and the mountains of Idaho, Nevada, Colorado and Utah. Includes The Mountain of the Holy Cross Colorado, Great Falls of Snake River Idaho Territory, and The Great Salt Lake of Utah. Each approximately 240x350 mm (or the reverse); two with very light staining at sheet edges; unmounted. Boston: Prang, 1876
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In 1871, Moran accompanied geologist Ferdinand V. Hayden on his expedition to survey Yellowstone. Three years later he journeyed to the West again with Hayden to Colorado, and returned to paint his mammoth oil Mountain of the Holy Cross (after which one of these chromolithographs is based). The Hayden survey, illustrated by Prang after Moran's watercolors and paintings from both trips, is among the most sought after and uncommon American color plate books and is rarely found intact. The complete portfolio contains 2 maps and 15 views, generally found mounted to white card stock, and is considered the finest example of 19th-century chromolithography. Moran himself wrote to Prang after its completion: "It is in every respect a most sumptuous & magnificent work . . . It seems to me that the Chromo-Lithography has, in your hands, attained perfection so skillfully have you reproduced every shade and tone of color in the originals" (quoted on page 318 in Anderson, et. al. Thomas Moran. Washington, 1997; in addition, this exhibition catalogue contains a full reproduction of the text and images of the portfolio).<