Study of Rocks in Pearson's Ravine

Arts of the Americas

mid–1850s

Asher B. Durand
American, 1796–1886

Asher B. Durand was a prominent figure of the Hudson River School who contributed to the rise of American landscape painting in the 1840s and 1850s. His Study of Rocks in Pearson’s Ravine depicts a fragment of forested terrain in the Delaware River Valley in New Jersey. The composition is an example of Durand’s intense investigation of nature, executed outdoors and with a high degree of finish. The artist rendered the moss-covered stone, flowering groundcover, and botanical variety in its particularity. Such small-scale canvases represent some of the earliest exhibited plein air (outdoor) painting in the United States.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Arts of the Americas

Artist: Asher Brown Durand
Title: Study of Rocks in Pearson's Ravine
Place: United States (Object made in)
Date: 1850–1859
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 61 × 45.7 cm (24 × 18 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of Jamee J. and Marshall Field
Reference Number: 2018.364
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/220730/manifest.json

Barridorff Galleries, Portland, ME, American and European Art, sale cat. (Barridoff Galleries, Portland, ME, Aug 7–8, 2008), lot 58 (color ill.), as Rocks in Pearson’s Ravine.

William T. Wiant Jr., Venice, FL, to 2002; by descent to his niece Chloe Wiant and nephew Cory Wiant; sold, Barridoff Galleries, South Portland, ME, August 8, 2003, lot 58, as “Rocks in Pearson’s Ravine,” to Marshall Field; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 2018.

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