Object number1864.1.60

Morning Over New York

Datec. 1859/1860

Artist Charles Herbert Moore (American, 1840-1930)

CultureAmerican

MediumOil on canvas

DimensionsUnframed: 11 13/16 x 29 15/16 in. (30 x 76 cm)
Framed: 18 1/8 x 36 1/4 x 3 1/8 in. (46 x 92 x 8 cm)

Credit LineGift of Matthew Vassar

On View

On view

Period19th c

Classification(s)

Painting

Terms

SignedInitialed lower right: C H M

InscribedBy artist, lower right: 1861

ProvenanceCollections: Elias Magoon
Exhibition HistoryThe Humanizing Landscapes: Geography, Culture and the Magoon Collection, Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY, October 5 - December 20, 2000;

A Focused Collection: The Hudson River School, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, April 21 - July 29, 2007; Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY, August 17 - October 19, 2007;

Paris--New York; Modern Paintings in 19th and 20th Century Master Works from the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York, Shimane Art Museum, Matsue, Japan, March 7 - May 11, 2008; Ishibashi Museum of Art, Kurume, Japan, May 17 - July 20, 2008; Yamagata Museum of Art, Yamagata, Japan, July 30 - August 31, 2008; Fuchu Art Museum, Fuchu, Japan, September 6 - November 3, 2008; Miyazaki Prefectural Art Museum, Miyazaki, Japan, November 14 - December 14, 2008;

The Hudson River, The Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY, July 2009 - March 2010
DescriptionThis is one of four paintings purchased from the twenty-year-old Charles Moore by Elias Magoon before the artist’s style evolved into one more influenced by John Ruskin and the Pre-Raphaelites. Moore would later contribute to the journal The New Path, the successor to The Crayon as the outlet for Ruskinian criticism. This painting portrays a luminous sunrise over a panoramic view of Lower Manhattan that ignites the pellucid atmosphere with numerous subtle hues. Five years after painting this picture, Moore moved his home and studio to Catskill, New York, after having narrowly missed an appointment to Vassar as its first professor of art, for which he was supported by letters from Frederic Church, Asher B. Durand, and Daniel Huntington. University teaching seemed his destiny, however, for he became a drawing instructor at Harvard in 1872, where he would go on to teach art history courses as well, and was, eventually, made the first director of the Fogg Museum, which opened its doors in 1895. During his early years at Harvard, he was sent to Europe by Charles Eliot Norton to receive instruction directly from Ruskin, although for all intents and purposes his career as an independent artist was by that time behind him.

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email loebcollections@vassar.edu