Twilight on Hunter Mountain, 1867

Provenance

Private collection

Sale, Christie’s New York, New York, June 3, 1983, lot 74, from above

Wolf Family Collection, Texas, acquired from above

Sale, Glorious America: The Wolf Family Collection, Sotheby’s, New York, New York, April 20, 2023, lot 506, from above

Related Works

A Sketch of Hunter Mountain, Catskills, 1865, oil on canvas, 10⅛ x 16⅞ inches, dated lower right: Oct 9^th 1865; Private collection

Hunter Mountain, Twilight, 1866, oil on canvas, 30⅝ x 54⅛ inches; Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago, Illinois

Note: In the Fall of 1865, Gifford set out on a sketching trip through the Catskills region. He created several depictions of this mountain scene, including a larger version now in the Terra Foundation for American Art, which he exhibited at the National Academy of Design in 1866 to great esteem. In this work, Gifford depicts a cattle farm nestled in a clearing near a tree line. In the distance sits Hunter Mountain, the second-highest peak of the Catskill Mountains, while the cut tree stumps in the foreground highlight the increasing destruction of the natural wilderness throughout the 19th century as settlers continued to expand and develop on the land.

Erving and Joyce (Joy) Wolf were passionate art collectors who amassed a remarkable collection throughout their marriage with works by some of the most recognizable American artists of the 19th and 20th century.