Diplomatic Reception Rooms, U.S. Department of State

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Glimpse of the Hudson River

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Object Details

Maker
James Hope (American, 1818-1892)
Date
1867
Geography
Unknown
Culture
North American
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
Overall: 20 in x 26 in; 50.8 cm x 66.04 cm
Provenance
Kennedy Galleries, New York, by 1967; to the Fine Arts Committee through purchase[1] Notes: 1.Assuming this is the painting listed in Elizabeth T. Strum, "James Hope: Nineteenth-Century American Painter," master's thesis (Syracuse University, 1981), 73; "Hudson River Scene, 1867/20 x 26 Inc. (50.8 x 66 cm)/oil on canvas/ Kennedy Galleries, New York, as of 1967." Strum, whose thesis leads the scarce literature on the artist, does not say whether this painting was so listed in the artist's ledger; therefore, the title as it was given by Kennedy Galleries in 1984 has been retained.
Inscriptions
Signed and dated at the lower right, "J. Hope 1867"; stenciled on the reverse of the original canvas: "PREPARED BY/ CHARLES ROBERSON/ [1]99 LONG ACRE LONDON"
Credit Line
Funds donated by the Lila Acheson Wallace Fund
Collection
The Diplomatic Reception Rooms, U.S. Department of State, Washington, D.C.
Accession Number
RR-1984.0034

Object Essay

James Hope remains a little-known figure. Born in Scotland, he emigrated with his father to Canada around 1826–1827. About 1834, after his father’s death, he moved to Fairhaven, Vermont. He was apprenticed for five years to a wagon-maker, studied at Castleton Seminary in Vermont for one year, and then taught school in West Rutland. After his marriage in 1841, he painted portraits in Vermont and then in Montreal. There is no evidence of prior artistic training.       

Although Hope continued to execute occasional portraits throughout his life, his deep love of nature drew him to landscape painting. The earliest known landscape to be exhibited was Sunrise, Castleton Lake, Vermont, shown at the American Art-Union in New York in 1849. “There was no ready market” for landscape, he wrote, “but [it] possessed my soul.” At about this time, Hope received much-needed encouragement and advice from “two artists, the one famous through color power [probably Frederic E. Church], the other through majesty of line [Asher B. Durand].”1David S. Brooke, “A View of Clarendon Springs by James Hope,” The Currier Gallery of Art Bulletin (Autumn 1970), n.p. This study contains a good biographical sketch of Hope’s pre-Civil War years. In 1852, he took a studio in New York, thenceforth returning to Castleton every summer.

At the outset of the Civil War, in June 1861, Hope organized and captained Company B of the 2nd Vermont Regiment. In two years of service, he took part in some of the bloodiest battles of the war, including Antietam, Fredericksburg, and both Battles of Bull Run. He made small sketches recording these clashes, using them to compose the large battle panoramas he exhibited after the war.2Obituary, Watkins Express, November 3, 1892. Although the success of these paintings was considerable, Hope’s temperament more often led him to paint intimate landscapes with titles like Forest Pool and Glimpse of Nature. This was particularly true after he moved to Watkins Glen, Vermont, in 1872 where, according to his obituary, he “took up his abode among the rocks and ferns of that wonderful gorge.”3Ibid.

Glimpse of the Hudson River predates Hope’s move to Watkins Glen but belongs to this type of landscape. The unidentified site seems at once carefully observed and artfully arranged. The mountain stream cascades into an emerald pool, then flows towards the placid Hudson. The picturesque animation of the foreground is resolved in the Edenic tranquility of the distance. Hope’s brush sparkles in the impasto of the watery spray and lingers over the lovely play of light and shadow below the pool. An undated poetic fragment by Hope resembles his landscape. He describes himself painting “when the gray mist lies still over valley and mountain/And the waters gush clear from the sparkling fountain.”4Brooke; quoted from Hemenway, 3: 538.

William Kloss

Excerpted from Clement E. Conger, et al. Treasures of State: Fine and Decorative Arts in the Diplomatic Reception Rooms of the U.S. Department of State. New York: H.N. Abrams, 1991.