Cascade in the Rocky Mountains, Cincinnati, c.1879
Price range: $295.00 through $540.00
Nobody signed it. In Cincinnati in 1879, an unknown artist painted a Rocky Mountain waterfall he may never have seen, and Gibson & Co. printed it in colour for American parlours: pink-tinged peaks, blazing autumn trees and white water tumbling over the rocks.
It was made to promise the great outdoors to people who might never get there, and it still does. Hang it anywhere a wall could use a little more air.
Cascade in the Rocky Mountains, Cincinnati, c.1879
The print
Print Quality: Gallery-standard archival pigment giclée, made to order
Media: Authentic 310gsm Hahnemühle German Etching, mould-made in Germany
Texture & Tone: Warm white with a soft, velvety texture
Longevity: Museum-grade, generational permanence
German Etching suits this print especially well. Its warm tone and gentle texture echo the feel of a nineteenth-century sheet, holding the pinks, autumn oranges and misty greens richly, with a slightly handmade quality.
Sizes available:
59×42cm, 23×17″, fine art print, open edition
80×60cm, 31×24″, fine art print, open edition
100×70cm, 39×28″, fine art print, open edition
Safe, tracked delivery guaranteed worldwide, with sustainable packaging.
The story
In the decades after the Civil War, colour lithography turned American homes into galleries. Printers could reproduce a painting in colour in large numbers, cheaply enough for almost any parlour, and landscapes were among the favourites: Niagara, Yosemite, the Catskills, the Rockies, often by artists who never signed their work.
This one was printed in Cincinnati by Gibson & Co., a firm founded in 1850 by four brothers from a Scottish family of lithographers, then aged between 12 and 34. Over the following decades it moved into Christmas cards and Valentines, and in time became Gibson Greetings, one of America’s biggest greeting-card makers.
The artist is unknown. The view is as much dream as geography: the American outdoors, promised to everyone.
