View of the Narrows from Brighton Heights, Staten Island, 1860
by Hermann Fuechsel (1833–1915)19¼ x 39¼ inches
Signed and dated lower right: H.FUECHSEL. / NY. 1860.
Information
Provenance
(Possibly) August Belmont, New York, 1860
(Possibly) Sale, Geo. A Leavitt & Co., New York, November 12, 1872, lot 24, sale of above, (as View of the Narrows)
Kennedy Galleries, New York, New York
The Thomas M. Evans Collection
Sale, Christie’s, New York, New York, June 18, 1998, lot 283
Godel & Co. Fine Art, New York, New York
Private collection, France
Sale, Christie’s, New York, New York, March 3, 2011, lot 189
Private collection, New York, New York
Questroyal Fine Art, LLC, New York, New York, from above, 2014
Private collection, Millerton, New York, acquired from above, 2015
Exhibited
(Possibly) National Academy of Design, New York, New York, 1860, no. 574 (as New-York Bay, from Staten Island)
Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, New York, The Panoramic River: the Hudson and the Thames, February 2–May 19, 2013 (as View of the Narrows from Tompkinsville, Staten Island)
Literature
(Possibly) Prose Perkins, “Sketchings,” The Crayon 7, no. 2 (February 1860): 57.
(Possibly) “The National Academy of Design,” New-York Daily Tribune, April 12, 1860: 5.
(Possibly) “The Belmont Gallery,” Chicago Daily Tribune, November 5, 1872: 1.
Bartholomew F. Bland, The Panoramic River: the Hudson and the Thames (Yonkers, NY: Hudson River Museum, 2013), 127, 128, 170, fig. 85 (as View of the Narrows from Tompkinsville, Staten Island).
Marie York, “Artists in the flow, here and across the pond,” The Riverdale Press, February 6, 2013, https://riverdalepress.com/stories/Artists-in-the-flow-here-and-across-the-pond,51825.
Note: The land protruding on the right is what is now referred to as Fort Wadsworth on Staten Island, with Battery Weed visible in the distance. Across the water is Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, with Fort Lafayette visible offshore. Fort Lafayette stood on a small island that is now under the eastern stanchion of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. The Greek Revival style building at the right is the Caleb T. Ward Mansion (built 1835), which stands today.
Artist Biography
Hermann Fuechsel was an important member of the Dusseldorf School that held such influence over 19th-century American art. Born in Brunswick, Germany, Fuechsel trained under Karl Freidrich Lessing at the Academy of Dusseldorf and immigrated to the United Stated in 1858. Once there, he established a studio in New York City’s 10th Street Studio Building alongside his friends from the Academy: Albert Bierstadt, Worthington Whittredge, and Emmanuel Leutze. Fuechsel gained recognition for his landscape paintings and engravings—luminous vistas of the Hudson River, White Mountains, Catskills, and Lake George. His engravings made him one of the country’s most published artists and
Hermann Fuechsel was an important member of the Dusseldorf School that held such influence over 19th-century American art. Born in Brunswick, Germany, Fuechsel trained under Karl Freidrich Lessing at the Academy of Dusseldorf and immigrated to the United Stated in 1858. Once there, he established a studio in New York City’s 10th Street Studio Building alongside his friends from the Academy: Albert Bierstadt, Worthington Whittredge, and Emmanuel Leutze. Fuechsel gained recognition for his landscape paintings and engravings—luminous vistas of the Hudson River, White Mountains, Catskills, and Lake George. His engravings made him one of the country’s most published artists and his paintings were exhibited at the National Academy of Design, the Brooklyn Art Association, the Boston Athaenuem, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Today, his work is in the Hudson River Museum, the Walker Art Center, the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, and the New York Historical Society.