Albert Bierstadt
Mount Rainier, 1890
oil on canvas, 54 x 83 inches (137 x 211 cm.)
Sold for $2,143,000
Albert Bierstadt leads Coeur d’Alene Art auction The 2011 Coeur d’Alene Art auction of American Painting totalled $16,9 million. The top lot was Albert Bierstadt’s monumental ‘Mount Rainier’ (1890), sold for $2,14 million]]>
July 26 2011, source: Coeur d’Alene Art Auction / theartwolf
Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902) is arguably the most prolific and the most grandiloquent of all the American painters of his time. He was one of the first painters who represented the grandeur of the American West, as we can see in his views of Yosemite Valley, the Kern River Valley or the White Mountains.
“Mount Rainier” is a monumental (54 x 83 inches) work by Bierstadt, painted while the artist was 60 years old. Although the figure of the mountain is really impressive, the painting lacks the dramatic light effects often used by Bierstadt in his most famous paintings, such as “Storm in the Rocky Mountains”. Anyways, it is of course an important painting, well worth the money paid for it. A smaller but very beautiful Bierstadt, “Lander’s Peak, Wyoming”, was sold for $1,85 million.
In addition to Bierstadt, the second protagonist of the auction was Charles M. Russell, whose “Water for Camp” (1892) was sold for $1,45 million, the same achieved by his “A Dangerous Sport” (1924).
The auction also featured some “bargains”: Hermann Herzog’s “River Mill Falls” sold for just $18,000 (not including the buyer’s premium), and his pleasant “Feeding Grounds” for just $3,000. Herzog was a skilled landscape painter, and some of his best works have been compared to the works by Bierstadt.
Related content
Albert Bierstadt: The Rocky Mountains, Lander’s Peak
Follow us on:
