Albert Bierstadt (1830 – 1902) – Seals on the Rocks

Albert Bierstadt (1830 – 1902) – Seals on the Rocks:

Albert Bierstadt (1830 – 1902)
Seals on the Rocks
oil on canvas
30 × 44 inches
signed lower left

VERSO
Label, Christie’s, New York, New York
Label, Gerald Peters Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico

The artist wrote, “It is like one vast menagerie. Upon the rocks adjacent to the sea, repose in easy indifference, thousands – yes, thousands – of sea lions (one species of the seal,) that weigh from two to five thousand pounds each.… On our left, and but a few yards from shore, is an isle, called Seal Rock, and where the sea lions have possession, and are waving their lubberly bodies to and fro, upon its very summit; and from whence the echoes of their low howling moans are heard across the sea, long after distance has hidden them from our sight.”

PROVENANCE
George Herzog, Cincinnati, Ohio
Mrs. George E. Medley, Owensboro, Kentucky, 1912
Private collection, Springfield, Kentucky, 1938
Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York, New York
Christie’s, New York, New York, 1994
Peter Simon, Morristown, New Jersey

EXHIBITED
A Collection Once Owned by George Herzog of Cincinnati, The Davies County Distilling Company, Owensboro, Kentucky, 1938
The George E. Medley Collection, The Owensboro Museum of Fine Art, Owensboro, Kentucky, 1978
Lines of Different Character: American Art from 1727 to 1947, Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York, New York, 1982-83
Bierstadt’s West, Gerald Peters Gallery, New York, New York, 1997

LITERATURE
The George E. Medley Painting Collection, The Owensboro Museum of Fine Art, 1978, p. 6, illustrated
Lines of Different Character: American Art from 1727 to 1947, Hirschl & Adler Galleries, 1982, pp. 48-49, illustrated
M. S. Young, “Other Regionalisms in American Paintings.” Apollo, November 1984, p. 330, illustrated
Gerald L. Carr, Bierstadt’s West, Gerald Peters Gallery, 1997, p. 55, illustrated

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Condition
Surface is in excellent condition. Canvas is lined. Spot of inpainting in upper-left corner, at edge of frame. Small spots of inpainting in the sky and under the rock arch in the water. Specks of inpainting on the top of wave, on right side.