
This auction has ended. View lot details
You may also be interested in







Albert Bierstadt(1830-1902)An Alps Mountain Scene with Figures, a Cabin, and a Cow
Sold for US$48,640 inc. premium
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 specialistAsk about this lot


Jelena James
Senior Specialist, Head of Sale

Claire Dettelbach
Cataloguer

Jewel Bernier
Cataloguer
Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902)
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.
























