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Frederic E. Church, The Andes of Ecuador, 1855
The Andes of Ecuador
Frederic E. Church, The Andes of Ecuador, 1855
Frederic E. Church, The Andes of Ecuador, 1855
DepartmentAmerican Art

The Andes of Ecuador

Artist (1826 - 1900)
Date1855
Mediumoil on canvas
DimensionsFrame: 59 5/8 x 87 1/2 in. (151.4 x 222.3 cm) Canvas: 48 x 76 1/2 in. (121.9 x 194.3 cm)
SignedF. E. Church / -1855-
Credit LineOriginal Purchase Fund from Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation, Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, ARCA, and Anne Cannon Forsyth
CopyrightPublic Domain
Object number1966.2.9
Description“Painted after Frederic Edwin Church’s first trip to Ecuador [1853], The Andes of Ecuador combines the scientific and religious concerns of Church’s time in one grand panorama. The infinite botanical detail, the terrifying depths of the abyss, and the overwhelming sense of unlimited space combine to communicate a powerful sense of the sublime.” [1] The painting encourages both distanced and close viewing through a dramatic sweeping vista that contains several small vignettes and seemingly endless details. Two figures in the left foreground pray in front of an archaic stone cross, colorful birds flocking in a palm tree above them. This scene is balanced on the right by cascades of water and a small lake. Snow-capped peaks in the background—Tungurahua on the left and the cone of Cotopaxi on the right—frame the distant view. The white-hot light of a centrally placed sun permeates a warm palette of sienna browns and lush greens.

Church depicted various plant and animal species with exactness while imbuing the painting with an explicit Christian iconography, mirroring contemporary thinking about science and religion. Through his overt allusions to Christianity within the Ecuadorian landscape, “Church was intimating that Americans inhabited a new Eden, a new promised land, and in standing before this sublime grandeur one enjoyed the metaphoric presence of Genesis.” [2] From the llamas grazing in the center foreground to the distant snowy peaks, the multiple ecosystems correspond to Alexander Von Humboldt’s belief in the harmony of nature in which biology, botany, and geology coalesce to determine vegetation. His theories were popular with artists of the nineteenth century, who saw in them a way to reconcile God’s divinity with scientific advancements. In the Cotopaxi region of Ecuador both Humboldt and Church found in one locale perennial summers—the tropics—juxtaposed with ice-covered volcanic mountains.

A critic writing for The Crayon in 1855 acclaimed the canvas Church’s “most important work yet,” and a student recalled how he painted “with a rapidity and precision which were simply inconceivable by one who had not seen him at work.” [3] In addition, The Andes of Ecuador is an early masterpiece of Luminism, a style prevalent in the late nineteenth century that consisted of radiant, light-filled quiet vistas.

Notes:
[1] Charles C. Eldredge, Barbara Babcock Millhouse, and Robert G. Workman, American Originals: Selections from Reynolda House, Museum of American Art (New York: Abbeville Press, 1990), 52.
[2] John Wilmerding, “Fire and Ice in American Art,” in Natural Paradise Painting in America, 1800–1950, Kynaston McShine, ed. (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1976), 50.
[3] The Crayon 1 (April 25, 1855), 268, and William James Stillman, The Autobiography of a Journalist 1 (Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin, and Co., 1901), 114, both quoted in Charles C. Eldredge, et al, American Originals, 52.
Provenance1855-1894
William Henry Osborn (1820-1894), painted for by Frederic E. Church. [1]

From 1894
Mrs. William H. Osborn (1831-1902), New York, bequest by William Henry Osborn in 1894. [2]

To 1951
A. Perry Osborn (1884-1951), New York, NY, gifted by Mrs. William H. Osborn. [3]

1951-1965
Mrs. A. Perry Osborn, New York, NY, bequest by A. Perry Osborn. [4]

1965
Mr. and Mrs. J. William Middendorf II, purchased from Mrs. A. Perry Osborn in the summer of 1965, through Robert Paul Weimann Fine Arts, New York, NY. [5]

1966
Kennedy Galleries, New York, NY. [6]

From 1966
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, purchased from Kennedy Galleries, New York, NY, on December 7, 1966. [7]

Notes:
[1] Object file, Kennedy Gallery documents.
[2] See note 1.
[3] See note 1.
[4] See note 1.
[5] See note 1. Also Object file, letter from Galer Weimann to Barbara Millhouse, June 6, 1977.
[6] Object file, receipt of purchase.
Exhibition History1855
Twenty-Eighth Exhibition of Paintings and Statuary
Atheneum Gallery, Boston, MA (1855)

1857
Annual Exhibition
National Academy of Design, New York, NY (1857)
Cat. No. 23

1864
Metropolitan Fair Sanitary Commission
Metropolitan Fair, New York, NY (4/1864)

1900
Paintings by Frederic E. Church, N.A.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY (5/28/1900-10/15/1900)

1966
Frederic Edwin Church
National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. (2/12/1966-3/13/1966)
Albany Institute of History and Art, New York, NY (3/30/1966-4/30/1966)
M. Knoedler and Co., New York NY (6/1/1966-6/30/1966)
Cat. No. 37

1971
Reynolda House American Paintings
Hirschl and Adler Galleries, Inc., New York, NY (1/13/1971-1/31/1971)
Cat. No. 21

1978
The Paintings and Oil Sketches of Frederic E. Church
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA (1978)

1980
American Light: The Luminist Movement, 1850-1875
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (2/10/1980-6/15/1980)

1983-1984
A New World: Masterpieces of American Painting, 1760-1910
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA (9/7/1983-11/13/1983)
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (12/6/1983-2/12/1984)
Grand Palais Louvre, Paris, France (3/13/1984-6/11/1984)

1989-1990
Frederic Edwin Church
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (10/8/1989-3/18/1990)
Cat. No. 25
Extended from 1/28/1990

1990-1992
American Originals, Selections from Reynolda House Museum of American Art
The American Federation of Arts
Center for the Fine Arts, Miami, FL (9/22/1990-11/18/1990)
Palm Springs Desert Museum, Palm Springs, CA (12/16/1990-2/10/1991)
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY (3/6/1991-5/11/1991)
Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis, TN (6/2/1991-7/28/1991)
Amon Carter Museum of Western Art, Fort Worth, TX (8/17/1991-10/20/1991)
Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, IL (11/17/1991-1/12/1992).
The Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, OK (3/1/1992-4/26/1992)
Cat No. 11 or 12 (bk)

2002
American Sublime
Tate Britain, London (2/21/2002-5/19/2002)
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA (6/17/2002-8/25/2002)
Minneapolis Institute of Fine Arts, Minneapolis, MN (9/22/2002-11/17/2002)
Cat. No. 85

2005
Vanguard Collecting: American Art at Reynolda House
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC (4/2005-8/2005)

2005-2006
JMW Turner and Frederic Church: An Atlantic Conversation
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC (11/15/2005-2/5/2006)

2009-2010
The Andes of Ecuador: Science and Spectacle
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC (9/26/2009-9/30/2010)
Published ReferencesTuckerman, H.T., Book of the Artists. 1867: 376, 384.

"American Painters:--Frederic Edwin Church, N.A." The Art Journal N.S. (American Edition) 1876: II, 67.

French, H.W. Art and Artists in Connecticut. 1879: 129-30.

Sheldon, G.W. American Painters. 1879: 12.

Clement, C.E. & Hutton, L. Artists of the Nineteenth Century and Their Works. 1879: I, 137.

Champlin, J.D. & Perkins, C.D. Cyclopedia Of Painters And Paintings. 1888: I, 295.

Montgomery, W. American Art And Art Collections. 1889: II, 774.

“Obituary of Frederic Edwin Church.” New York Times (April 8, 1900): 16.

Schwatz, H.F. "Frederic Edwin Church, Painter of the Andes." Natural History XXIV (1924): 444.

National Cyclopaedia Of American Biography XX. 1929: 33.

Avery, M.H. "The Artist of Katahdin" Appalachia XCVIII, N.S. (December 1944): 149 (as "The Great Mountain Chain of New Granada").

Huntington, D.C. The Landscapes Of Frederic Edwin Church--Vision Of An American Era. 1966: 43, 44, 49, 50, 65, 128, 200.

Lassiter, Barbara B. Reynolda House American Paintings. Winston-Salem, NC: Reynolda House, Inc., 1971: 24, illus. 25.

Millhouse, Barbara B. & Workman, Robert. American Originals. New York: Abbeville Press Publishers, 1990: 86-9.

Avery, Kevin J. Church's Great Picture, The Heart Of The Andes. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1994.

Hitomi, Nobuko. Hudson River School. Tokyo: Treville Co, Ltd., 1996.

Living In Our World: The Americas Raleigh, NC: Humanities Extension/Publications Program North Carolina State University, 1998: illus. ii, 469.

Voorsanger, Catherine Hoover and John K. Howat, eds. Art And The Empire City: New York, 1825-1861. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000: 99.

For Glory And For Beauty

Novak, Barbara. Nature and culture: American landscape and painting, 1825-1875. 3rd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007, cover art and plate 6. ISBN: 9780195305869

Winthrop, T. A Companion To The Heart Of The Andes. 1859: 14.

Walls, Laura Dassow. The Passage to Cosmos: Alexander von Humboldt and the shaping of American. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009.

Wilton, Andrew. Frederic Church and the Landscape Oil Sketch. Yale University Press, 2013: FIG.4, 18.

Ferber, Linda S. “William Trost Richards (1833-1905): American Landscape and Marine Painter.” Outstanding Dissertations in the Fine Arts. Garland Publishing, ca. 1980.

Hudson River School Visions: the landscapes of Sanford R. Gifford. Ed. Kevin J. Avery and Franklin Kelly. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2003. ISBN: 1588390977

Mizuki, Keiko. The Journal of American Literature Society in Japan (Studies of American Literature). No. 41 Hyogo, Japan: American Literature Society of Japan, 2005. ISSN: 1348-1681

Howat, John K. Frederic Church. New Haven CT: Yale University Press, 2005. ISBN: 0300109881

J.M.W. Turner. Ed. Ian Warrell. London: Tate Pub., 2007. ISBN: 9781854376909 **was exhibition and publication. Used as comparative image?***

Cash, Sarah. Corcoran Gallery of Art Pre-1945 American Paintings Collection Catalogue. CGA and Marquand Books, April 2011: 112.

Carr, Gerald L. Frederic Edwin Church: Romantic Landscapes and Seascapes. Adelson Galleries, 2008.

Fichner-Rathus, Lois. Understanding Art. 9th ed. Belmont CA: Wadsworth, 2010.

Cash, Sarah. Corcoran Gallery of Art Pre-1945 American Paintings Collection Catalogue. CGA and Marquand Books, Dec. 2011.

Novak, Barbara. Voyages of the self: pairs, parallels, and patterns in American art and literature. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. ISBN: 0195305906

Art in America: 300 years of innovation. Ed. Susan Davidson. London & New York: Merrell & Guggenheim, 2007. ISBN: 1858943949

Fichner-Rathus, Lois. Foundations of Art and Design. Belmont CA: Wadsworth, 2008.

Gurney, James. Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter. Kansas City, MO: Andrews McMeel, 2010.

American Light: The Luminist Movement, 1850-1875. Ed. John Wilmerding. Washington D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1980.

Wierich, Jochen. Grand Themes: Emanuel Leutze, Washington Crossing the Delaware, and American History Painting. University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2012: 69

Brownlee, Peter John, Valeria Piccoli and Georgiana Uhlyarik, eds. Picturing the Americas: Landscape Painting from Tierra del Guego to the Arctic. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015: 62.

Meyers, Kenneth John, with Kevin J. Avery, Gerald L. Carr, and Mercedes Volait. Frederic Church: A Painter's Pilgrimage.". New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017: 53.

Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Reynolda: Her Muses, Her Stories, with contributions by Martha R. Severens and David Park Curry (Winston-Salem, N.C.: Reynolda House Museum of American Art affiliated with Wake Forest University, 2017). pg 96, 97, 128, 192

Harvey, Eleanor Jones. 2020. Alexander von Humboldt and the United States: Art, Nature, and Culture. Smithsonian American Art Museum in association with Princeton University Press, page 356
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