Skip to main content

This auction has ended. View lot details

You may also be interested in

Own a similar item?

Submit your item online for a free auction estimate.

Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902) An Alps Mountain Scene with Figures, a Cabin, and a Cow image 1
Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902) An Alps Mountain Scene with Figures, a Cabin, and a Cow image 2
Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902) An Alps Mountain Scene with Figures, a Cabin, and a Cow image 3
Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902) An Alps Mountain Scene with Figures, a Cabin, and a Cow image 4
Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902) An Alps Mountain Scene with Figures, a Cabin, and a Cow image 5
Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902) An Alps Mountain Scene with Figures, a Cabin, and a Cow image 6
Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902) An Alps Mountain Scene with Figures, a Cabin, and a Cow image 7
FROM THE MEACHAM FAMILY COLLECTION CLEVELAND, OHIO; THENCE BY DESCENT
Lot 79

Albert Bierstadt
(1830-1902)
An Alps Mountain Scene with Figures, a Cabin, and a Cow

26 September – 7 October 2025, 12:00 EDT
Skinner Marlborough, Massachusetts

Sold for US$48,640 inc. premium

Own a similar item?

Submit your item online for a free auction estimate.

How to sell

Looking for a similar item?

Our specialists can help you find a similar item at an auction or via a private sale.

Find your local specialist

Ask about this lot

Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902)

An Alps Mountain Scene with Figures, a Cabin, and a Cow
signed 'ABierstadt.' (lower right); with a handwritten inventory label (affixed to the stretcher)
oil on canvas
28 7/8 x 21 1/2 in. (73.3 x 54.6 cm)

Footnotes

Provenance
From the Meacham Family Collection, Cleveland, Ohio.
Thence by descent.

N.B.
An Alps Mountain Scene with Figures, a Cabin, and a Cow is a bucolic scene depicting a woman seated on a grassy slope near a grazing cow as two small children, mid-ground on the left, walk down a path from a house behind them. Another figure appears on the porch of the house. Trees are scattered about left and right of the cabin and a snow-covered mountain looms in the distance.

The scene recalls other paintings Bierstadt did of the Alps, especially those he did earlier in his career. The distant mountain could well be the Eiger, which places the scene in Switzerland's Grindelwald Valley. The artist visited Switzerland several times during his lifetime, specifically traveling to the Bernese Alps in July, September, and October of 1856, and September of 1867. The fine brush work and the fact that the painting is a genre scene and not a pure landscape are also characteristic of Bierstadt's earlier work. The house in the present work appears as well in smaller studies, including one sold at Christie's, and Bierstadt probably painted it in his studio while referencing oil studies that he had painted in the field. An Alps Mountain Scene with Figures, a Cabin, and A Cow is therefore a wonderful example not only of Bierstadt's earlier work but also of the artist's artistic process, namely incorporating his field sketches into a finished painting.

We wish to thank Melissa Speidel of the Albert Bierstadt catalogue raisonné project for her assistance in cataloguing this lot. This work is included in the database being compiled for her forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the artist's work.

Additional information

Bid now on these items

Attributed to Giuseppe Angeli(Italian, 1712-1798)Sportsman Handing a Coin to a Woman with a Basket of Fruit and a Child by Her Side

German/Austrian School(18th Century)Der Vogelkäufer (The Bird Buyer)

Antonio Francesco Peruzzini(Italian, 1668-1724)A Mediterranean Landscape with Figures Boarding a Boat in Choppy Seas (a fragment)

Attributed to François de Troy(French, 1645-1730)Portrait of a Lady, Possibly Madame de Montespan, as Venus Disarming Cupid

Italian School(17th century)Portrait of Christopher Columbus

Circle of Andrea del Sarto(Italian, 1486-1530)Portrait of a Lady

Circle of Pieter Pourbus(Netherlands, 1524-1584)Portrait of a Nobleman, Three-Quarter Length, in Fur-Trimmed Black Robes

James Cranke(British, 1707-1780)Portrait of a Lady

After Sir Martin Shee(Irish, 1769-1850)Portrait of John Charles, Viscount Althorp, later 3rd Earl Spencer

School of Francis Cotes R.A.(British, 1726-1770)Portrait of a Gentleman in a Green Coat

Eduard Niczky(German, 1850-1919)Mother's Love

Attributed to John Cordrey(active England, circa 1765-1825)The Chester to London Coach

Jan van Chelminski(Polish, 1851-1925)Officers on a Snowy Road with Two Monks

Jules Girardet(French, 1856-1938)Prussian War

Paul Louis Narcisse Grolleron(French, 1848-1901)Troops Pausing on a Village Road in Winter

Antoine Blanchard(French, 1910-1988)Boulevard de la Madeleine, circa 1980

Emil Barbarini(Austrian, 1855-1930)Old England

August Friedrich Albrecht Schenck(Dutch, 1828-1901)Shepherd with His Flock in a Snowstorm

Eugène Verboeckhoven(Belgian, 1799-1881)Peasant with a Cow, Sheep, and Donkey

Eugène Verboeckhoven(Belgian, 1798-1881) and Johann Bernhard Klombeck (Dutch, 1815-1893)Herding by the Forest's Edge

Cesar de Cock(Belgian, 1823-1904)Cows and a Figure Beneath the Trees

Filippo Palizzi(Italian, 1818-1899)A Wooded Landscape with a Figure and Goats

Alfred Pollentine(British, 1836-1890)The Grand Canal

Alfred Vickers Sr.(British, 1786-1868)A Cliffside View