| Date: | probably undated |
| Medium: | oil on canvas |
| Size: | 30 x 50 in (76 x 127 in) |
| Inscription: | l/r "F. Schafer", in the artist's characteristic block-letter hand |
| Verso: | said to be "The Alps of California" |
| Provenance: | Sold August 1972 for $500 by Butterfield & Butterfield, San Francisco, August 1972. In private collection, Scottsdale, Arizona, to 2002; sold 9 June 2002 for $10575 by Bonhams & Butterfields, San Francisco, as lot 8142 in sale 7337D, California and American Paintings & Sculpture, Session 2 to private collection, San Francisco. |
| Reproductions: | William K. Dick photo #24 (color, 1972); 6 June 2002 sale catalog. |
| Description: | A snow-capped ridge runs from the left edge about three-fourths of the way across the painting, where it disappears behind a small grove of conifers standing on a dark green, rocky slope that appears as a triangle across the lower right. The sky, which has a few clouds, is a purplish hazy grey, almost the same shade as the haze that covers the lower reaches of the distant ridge, making it appear to float against the sky. A steep, rocky, beige cliff in the middle distance forms the far wall of a deep valley. The nearby, grass- and wildflower- covered slope has a prominent, long narrow boulder in the center, across which lies the trunk of a dead tree; a larger boulder lies near the right edge. (From a color photograph.) |
| Note: | A painting with the same title was exhibited at the Mechanics'Institute Nineteenth Industrial Exhibition in 1884 but there is not enough information in the exhibition listing to either include or exclude the possibility that it is the same painting. |
| Identification: | Title from verso inscription. |
| In index(es): | Title list, unidentified mountain scenes |
![[photo]](../smalls/p/img1021.jpg)