| Attribution: At the present time, only a small number of paintings have any discussion of their attribution. In the compilation of this inventory, there has been no special effort to either authenticate or deauthenticate the paintings described here. Except for a few paintings that seem obviously not to belong among Schafer's work, all mentioned and claimed paintings are listed. It is quite likely that some of the paintings in this inventory are not authentic works of Schafer. As described under Provenance, complete history of the ownership of Schafer's paintings is rarely available, so that source of authentication is not usually available, leaving only connoisseurship (judgement based on experience) as a method of authentication. In addition, there are a number of paintings in this inventory that bear signatures of other artists, such as Bierstadt, Hill, and Moran, but that appear from their style, composition, and brushwork to be more appropriately attributed to Schafer. These paintings are most often discovered when a specialist in the other artist's work raises questions about their attribution, and begins to look for a more likely attribution. |