Currently not on view
Rocks, Trees, and Dog,
1846
Thomas Cole, 1801–1848; born Lancashire, England; died Catskill, NY
x1940-79
Largely self-taught, the British-born painter Thomas Cole was the most significant American artist to emerge in the first half of the nineteenth century. Cole was a founding member of the National Academy, as well as the initiator of the Hudson River School, and his influence as a landscape painter and draftsman extended over several generations of American artists, writers, and collectors. Cole would undertake arduous sketching expeditions throughout remote wilderness areas of the Hudson Valley and New England, making meticulous graphite drawings to be used as reference material for paintings he later produced in the studio. This close study of rocks and trees was most likely made on an excursion Cole took to the Adirondacks in the summer of 1846.
Information
Title
Rocks, Trees, and Dog
Dates
1846
Maker
Medium
Graphite heightened with white chalk
Dimensions
35.6 x 24.7 cm. (14 x 9 3/4 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Frank Jewett Mather Jr.
Object Number
x1940-79
Inscription
in graphite, lower left: June 5th 1846
in graphite, throughout: [notations]
Culture
Type
Materials
Techniques
Mrs. Florence Cole Vincent (the artist's granddaughter); purchased by the donor at Cole's Catskill studio
- Barbara T. Ross, American Drawings in the Art Museum, Princeton University: 130 Selected Examples (Princeton: Art Museum, Princeton University, 1976)., p. 114, no. 114 (illus.)
- John Wilmerding et al., American Art in the Princeton University Art Museum: volume 1: drawings and watercolors, (Princeton: Princeton University Art Museum; New Haven, CT; London: Yale University Press, 2004), p. 352, checklist no. 1073
