About This Artwork

Thomas Cole
American, 1801-1848

New England Scenery, 1839

Oil on canvas
57.1 x 46.7 cm (22 1/2 x 18 3/8 in.)
Signed on lower section of tree trunk: "T Cole"
Dated at bottom, left of center: "1839"
Mr. and Mrs. Samuel M. Nickerson Collection, 1900.558

Exhibition, Publication and Ownership Histories

Exhibition History

Boston Athenaeum, Fourteenth Exhibition of Paintings, June-?, 1840, cat. 35, as “Sunrise. A New England Scene.”

New York City, Apollo Association, Granite Building, Eighth Exhibition, Oct. 5-Dec. ?, 1841, cat. 46, as “Landscape—New England Scenery.”

New York City, Gallery of the American Art-Union, The Washington Exhibition in Aid of the New York Gallery of the Fine Arts, Mar.-May 1, 1853, cat. 110.

Chicago, Art-Hall, Exposition Building, The Inter-State Industrial Exposition, Sept. 7-Oct. 9, 1876, cat. 361, as “Landscape.”

Chicago, Industrial Service Center, Y.W.C.A., Sept. 19, 1924-June 3, 1927, extended loan,as “Ideal Mountains.”

Chicago, George Williams College (formerly Y.M.C.A. College), Nov. 19, 1931-Nov. 7, 1940, extended loan, as “Landscape.”

Hudson River Exhibition, Feb. 15-Mar. 25, 1945.

Milwaukee Art Institute, Nineteenth Century American Masters, Feb. 20-Mar. 28, 1948, cat. 12.

Hartford, Conn., Wadsworth Atheneum, Thomas Cole 1801-1848: One Hundred Years Later, Nov. 12, 1948-Jan. 2, 1949, cat. 155, as Niagara Falls; traveled to New York City, Whitney Museum of American Art, Jan. 8-30, 1949.

Arts Club of Chicago, The American Landscape, Nov. 14-Dec. 29, 1973, cat. 4.

Washington, D.C., Corcoran Gallery of Art, Niagara: Two Centuries of Changing Attitudes, 1697-1901, Sept. 21-Nov. 24, 1985; traveled to Buffalo, Knox Art Gallery, July 13-Sept. 1, 1985, Corcoran Gallery of Art, New-York Historical Society, Jan. 22-Apr. 27, 1986.

Publication History

Judith A. Barter et al., American Arts at The Art Institute of Chicago: From Colonial Times to World War I (Art Institute of Chicago, 1998) pp. 116-17, fig. 22.

Ownership History

Thomas Cole, from 1839; W.F. Ladd, New York, around 1841; Charles Baker, New York, by 1853; Samuel Nickerson, Chicago, 1876; given to The Art Institute of Chicago, 1900.