Albert Bierstadt (American, 1830-1902) New Hampshire Mountains Oil on paper laid on board 14 x 20 inches (35.6 x 50.8 cm) Signed with conjoined initials lower right: ABierstadt PROVENANCE: Meredith Long & Company, Houston, Texas; Private collection, Houston, Texas, acquired from the above, 1986. New Hampshire Mountains is included in the Albert Bierstadt database being compiled by Melissa Webster Speidel in preparation for a catalogue raisonné of the artist's paintings. The present work is accompanied by her letter dated August 15, 2026. In New Hampshire Mountains, Albert Bierstadt makes the shifting atmosphere the focus of this sweeping view. Placing darkened hills beneath a cloud-filled sky, intermittent sunlight shines across the undulating slopes below. A keen observer then discovers the distant horse and rider at lower left, lending scale to the expansive landscape before them. As Melissa Webster Speidel writes, "In his oil sketches and studies, Bierstadt typically had a focus. Sometimes it was the composition, sometimes the mountain formation, other times the rocks or trees and quite often, as in the subject painting, the clouds and the play of light on the landscape." According to Speidel, "Bierstadt traveled to New Hampshire repeatedly throughout his career. Documented trips date as early as 1852 to as late as 1886." During these trips Bierstadt seemed capitated by "their beauty and picturesque qualities." She concludes, "Bierstadt's continued visits to New Hampshire over more than three decades speak to the artist's enduring fascination with the beauty of the state. Its changing atmospheric conditions and varied terrain offered him continual opportunities to study the effects of light and weather on the landscape and to capture the rugged character of its mountains and valleys as revealed through these shifting conditions." Additional examples of the artist's oil studies of the region include Turbulent Clouds, White Mountains, New Hampshire, formerly in the collection of Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, California, and White Mountains, New Hampshire in the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. HID12401132022 © 2026 Heritage Auctions | All Rights Reserved www.HA.com/TexasAuctioneerLicenseNotice

Meredith Long & Company, Houston, Texas; Private collection, Houston, Texas, acquired from the above, 1986.

Artist’s pinholes in the extreme outer corners. Scattered spots of staining along extreme outer edges. The surface of the work appears to be dirty and there are pindot accretions throughout. There appears to be a vertical crease in the paper at upper center. Tape remnants from a previous mounting on the reverse of the sheet and a small repair at the upper left corner. Under UV examination, varnish fluoresces strongly. A few pindots and dashes of inpaint in the outer corners and lower edge.
Framed Dimensions 21.5 X 27.5 Inches