Cows in a Pond at Sunset

1860

Sanford Robinson Gifford (American, 1823–1880)

Landscape painter Sanford Robinson Gifford portrayed the glowing light of sunset with brief brushstrokes and a limited, terracotta palette in this small oil sketch. With gradated bands of color, the artist captured the transitory moment’s golden, expansive sky and its reflection on the watering hole below. The bucolic scene evokes the tranquility and romance of nature. Across the pond, a home in the wilderness indicates man’s harmonious relation to the land.

Status: On View, Gallery 176
Department: Arts of the Americas

Artist: Sanford Robinson Gifford
Title: Cows in a Pond at Sunset
Place: New York (Place depicted)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1860
Medium: Oil on canvas
Inscriptions: signed, lower left in wet paint: "SR Gifford '60"
Dimensions: 19.1 × 35.9 cm (7 1/2 × 14 1/8 in.)
Credit Line: Through prior acquisition of the Charles H. and Mary F. S. Worcester Collection
Reference Number: 1988.317
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/72398/manifest.json

Steven Conn and Andrew Walker, “The History in the Art: Painting the Civil War,” Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 27, 1 (2001), 60–81, fig. 11.

Alexander Gallery, New York, Sanford Robinson Gifford, Mar. 20–Apr. 19, 1986, cat. 14.

With Alexander Gallery, New York, by 1986; private collection, New York; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1988.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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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.

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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.