Cole was enraptured by the mountains, crags, and verdant valleys that rim the Hudson River in upstate New York and spent much of his time at his house near the town of Catskill, on the banks of Catskill Creek. By 1837, however, the landscape no longer resembled this canvas. The Canajoharie and Catskill Railroad was being constructed through its heart, dooming hundreds of trees. Cole, who was also a poet and an essayist, wrote in despair of the ruthless sacrifice. In the painting, the misty distant mountains, the calm light on the water, and the pastoral figures in the foreground constitute a scene that he mourned as lost forever.

• Signatures, Inscriptions, and Markings

  Signature: [at lower right]: T Cole / 1837

• Provenance

  Jonathan Sturges, New York (1837–d. 1874); his children (1874–95)

• Timeline of Art History (2000–present)
  Thematic Essays

  Thomas Cole (1801–1848)

  Timelines

  The United States and Canada, 1800–1900 A.D.
• MetPublications
  American Paintings: A Catalogue of the Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Vol. 1, Painters Born by 1815 (1965)

  American Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Vol. 1, A Catalogue of Works by Artists Born by 1815 (1994)

  American Paradise: The World of the Hudson River School (1987)

  Hudson River School Visions: The Landscapes of Sanford R. Gifford (2003)

  "Jonathan Sturges, W.H. Osborn, and William Church Osborn: A Chapter in American Art Patronage": Metropolitan Museum Journal, v. 43 (2008) (2008)

  A Walk Through The American Wing (2002)