On the Hudson River, Near Idlewild

Greatorex began studying art in the early 1850s, training with landscape painters William Wallace Wotherspoon and William Hart. In 1861, she departed for a year-long trip to Europe, where she studied Old Master paintings in Paris and sketched landscapes in the French countryside. Painted upon her return to New York, this picturesque oil study depicts a bend in the Hudson River near Idlewild—the home of American author Nathaniel Parker Willis—in Cornwall-on-Hudson. The work reveals the influence of the Barbizon School: rocky outcroppings and loosely painted foliage frame the scene, as the river winds its way from the foreground to the middle ground, where a group of cows are seen wading in the water. Loosely painted with quick strokes and dabs, the work was likely completed en plein air (or outdoors) in preparation for a finished studio landscape. Greatorex painted several views around Idlewild, exhibiting three paintings of the area at National Academy of Design (NAD) between 1862 and 1864. She was later elected an associate member of the NAD—only the second woman to be awarded the honor.