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Frederick Ferdinand Schafer Painting Catalog

Painting record FFSd0198

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[photo] Mount Shasta, from the upper Sacramento River [1]
Photo credit: Walter Nelson-Rees, WIM Fine Arts
Date: said to be undated
Medium: oil on canvas
Size: 19.5 x 15 in (59.5 x 38.1 cm)
Inscription: l/r "F. Schafer", in the artist's characteristic block-letter hand
Verso: said to be "Mt Shasta - from Upper Sacramento River - Calif.", in pencil on the paper backing
Provenance: Sold December 1977 for $600+10% by Butterfield & Butterfield, San Francisco, as lot 606. Sold in 1977 by WIM Fine Arts, Oakland, California, to collection of Mr. & Mrs. James R. Harvey, San Francisco; donated in 1982 to The Monterey Museum of Art, inventory #82.66.
Exhibited: A Sense of Place: California Landscape Painting 1870–1930, San Francisco, 1978.
Reproductions: Early California and Western Art Research/Schafer slide #41 (color, 1977); WIM Fine Arts photo #444
Citations: Monterey Peninsula Museum file
Site: Mount Shasta, California, seen from the Southwest, through a valley with Shastina in front and very slightly to the left.
Description: The two peaks are snow-covered, with the lower peak in the center of the painting; between fog at their base and wisps of clouds in the blue sky above, they almost float in the air above an indistinct grey, lower mountain range. Steep white cliffs surmounted by less steep brown rocky cliffs rise high above a white water river on the right. Two large, white boulders stand in the center, with a dead tree fallen on them from the left. Three tall trees stand on the slope near the left front, more trees lie further along the slope, and a forest lies beyond. A top-left to lower-right diagonal divides the foreground, mostly in greens with a little brown, from the middle distance and background, in dusty greys, whites, and blues. (From the painting, 22 October 1989, at the Monterey Peninsula Museum).
Note: 1. The representation of Mount Shasta is realistic, very similar to that of On the Upper Sacramento River. 2. A painting with the same title was offered as lot 10 in the catalog of a July 1885 auction in Victoria, British Columbia, but there is not enough information in that catalog to either include or exclude the possibility that it is this painting.
Identification: The Early California and Western Art Research index identifies the slide with the 1977 Butterfield & Butterfield sale; the slide appears to be the same painting that is in the possession of the Monterey Peninsula Museum. The size comes from the Museum accession record, and the verso inscription was reported by Susan Else, museum registrar. Records of WIM Fine Arts (the purchaser at the Butterfield & Butterfield auction) show its size to have been 28.5 x 24.25 inches; this difference has not been reconciled.
Other title(s): Mount Shasta (The Monterey Museum of Art wall card)
In index(es): Title list, Mount Shasta and Shastina

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Mar 10, 2024, 11:47 MDT Accessibility