271

Albert Bierstadt

1830 - 1902

Study for the Great Trees (Mariposa, California), ca. 1875

oil on paper over board
initialed lower left: AB
27 1/2 x 18 1/2 in. (69.9 x 47 cm.), frame: 36 x 27 x 3 in. (91.4 x 68.6 x 7.6 cm.)

  • Provenance: James Cox Gallery, Woodstock, New York
    Private Collection, New Mexico
  • Exhibited:
    Albert Bierstadt: An Exhibition of Forty Paintings, Alexander Gallery, New York, New York, September 29 - November 5, 1983
  • Literature:
    Gerald L. Carr, Albert Bierstadt: An Exhibition of Forty Paintings, Alexander Gallery, New York, New York, 1983, No. 5

    Albert Bierstadt was a German-born American landscape painter of the Hudson River School, celebrated for panoramic, theatrically lit visions of the American West. Trained in Düsseldorf, he sketched on western expeditions (notably the 1859 Lander survey) and turned those studies into landmark paintings such as The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak (1863) and Among the Sierra Nevada, California (1868).

    A distinctive strand of his oeuvre is the sequoia/redwood artworks of the 1870s. After traveling in California, Bierstadt painted both giant sequoias and coastal redwoods, ranging from cabinet-size studies to exhibition canvases. The sequoia works often use a tall, vertical format with a sun-raked cinnamon trunk soaring from a shadowed understory, while the redwood scenes emphasize towering height and coastal atmosphere. Produced mainly circa 1872–1876, these paintings answered collectors' demand for more intimate subjects and helped popularize the trees as national emblems—arriving just after the 1864 Yosemite Grant that first protected Mariposa Grove—so they sit at the intersection of art, tourism, and early conservation.
  • Condition: Under black light there appear to be three scattered areas of inpainting along both left and right cerimeters of the painting, and in extreme lower left corner, typical of reframing; a line approximately 1.50 inches in length at the base of the two large trees, plus three more spots within the trees. There is a small L-shaped area of in painting in upper left quadrant, also a possible repair to a quarter inch tear perpendicular to the rabbet in upper left quadrant. The painting appears to have been professionally restored some time ago and appears to bear a heavy but not glossy varnish.

    A condition report for this lot is available upon request and is provided by Santa Fe Art Auction as a courtesy and convenience for potential buyers.

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November 8, 2025 1:00 PM MST
Santa Fe, NM, US

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