The Valley of Wyoming

Artist:: Jasper Francis Cropsey (American, Rossville, New York 1823–1900 Hastings-on-Hudson, New York)

Date:: 1865

Medium:: Oil on canvas

Dimensions:: 48 1/2 x 84 in. (123.2 x 213.4 cm)

Classification:: Paintings

Credit Line:: Gift of Mrs. John C. Newington, 1966

Accession Number:: 66.113

On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 760

This large studio work was commissioned in 1864 by Milton Courtright (1810 - 1883). Courtright was born and raised on his family's farm in the heart of the Wyoming Valley. In his account book, Cropsey recorded a payment of $125 from Courtright on August 4, 1864, and three additional payments in January, March, and May 1865, totaling $3, 500. On August 8, Cropsey made at least two preparatory drawings of the site (now in Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). One of these served as the basis for the oil sketch for this painting (see 25.110.63). This final version of the picture was shown at the National Academy of Design in New York in 1865. It retains an original frame and plaque with a poem written in 1809 by the Scottish poet Thomas Campbell.

Signature: [at lower right]: J.F. Cropsey / 1865.–

Milton Courtright, Erie, Pennsylvania and New York, 1865–died 1882; probably with his wife (died 1885) or his estate, from 1882 Private Collection; his son and granddaughter; Howard J. Peters, Erie, Pennsylvania, by 1963–1964; Mrs. John C. Newington, Greenwich, Connecticut, by 1964–1966

Essays
The Hudson River School

Timelines
The United States and Canada, 1800–1900 A.D.

American Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Vol. 2, A Catalogue of Works by Artists Born between 1816 and 1845
American Paradise: The World of the Hudson River School
Masterpieces of American Painting in The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Nineteenth-Century America: Paintings and Sculpture
A Walk Through The American Wing