| Date: | from inscription, 1887 |
| Medium: | oil on canvas |
| Size: | 40 x 30 in (102 x 76 cm) |
| Inscription: | said to be signed and dated l/l "T Moran 1887" (illegible in photograph) |
| Verso: | none reported. |
| Provenance: | In collection of Alice Doran Haynes by 1961; by gift to Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, California. Offered in 1965 by 49 Steps Antiques, Los Angeles, to the The Oakland Museum of California, offer declined. In collection of Loyde Hamilton Hudson M.D. (1923–2018), Fayetteville, Arkansas, "for 50 years" by 2014, donated December 2014 to Ouachita Baptist University, Arkadelphia, Arkansas. |
| Exhibited: | Two Hundred Years of American Painting 1755–1960, Santa Barbara Museum, Santa Barbara, California, 1961, painting #49.
Rosemary Gossett Adams Gallery, Ouachita Baptist University, Arkadelphia, Arkansas, September 1–October 3, 2015 and September 1–27, 2017. |
| Reproductions: | Santa Barbara Museum 1961 exhibition catalog, figure 49. |
| Citations: | Archives of California Art, Thomas Moran vertical file; William K. Dick notes, page 61. |
| Attribution: | A note from Paul Mills, curator of the The Oakland Museum of California, on the back of the photograph in the Archives of California Art file reads "SBM [Santa Barbara Museum] says challenged as Moran". No reason for the challenge is given but it may be because the painting lacks the vivid colors and range of illumination often found in Moran's work. William K. Dick suggests that its size may be the result of cutting down a 50 x 30 inch canvas to remove a Schafer signature. The overall appearance, composition, style, palette, consistent illumination, botanically accurate trees, and progressively less finish on successive planes are all typical of Schafer's work. There are four other similar paintings by Schafer in this inventory, Lookout Rock, Yosemite Valley [1], [Lookout Rock - Yosemite Valley 2], Lookout Rock, Yosemite Valley, California [3], and [Yosemite view from Lookout Rock]. However, further analysis of the painting in situ is needed to resolve the question. |
| Description: | A nearly vertical, shadowed cliff stands in the midground left with a small grove of flat-topped trees near its rim and a grove of conifers farther back from the edge. In the foreground left is a wildflower-lined path across a prominent rock formation on which stands a leaning dead tree. The trunk of a second dead tree lies across its base. On the right is a deep, forested valley with three successively more rugged mountains and the hazy suggestion of a fourth in the background. A tall tree in the valley below stands nearly in the center of the painting. The sky is filled with stormy clouds. (From a monochrome photograph.) |
| Note: | A painting with the title "Lookout Rock, Yosemite" appears as lot 43 on page 4 in the catalog of paintings offered at an auction held 22 September 1882 by George F. Lamson at Dashaway Hall in San Francisco but without enough information to confirm or refute that it is this painting. |
| Identification: | Title from the 1961 exhibition catalog, also used in the 2015 and 2017 exhibitions. |
| In index(es): | paintings probably attributable to Schafer |
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