HENRY CHAPMAN FORD (1828-1894)
HENRY CHAPMAN FORD (1828-1894)

Estes Park, Colorado Landscape with Ute Indian Encampment

Details
HENRY CHAPMAN FORD (1828-1894)
Estes Park, Colorado Landscape with Ute Indian Encampment
signed 'H.C. Ford' (lower right)
oil on canvas mounted on board
34¾ x 58 3/8 in. (88.3 x 148.3 cm.)
Provenance
Mr. and Mrs. Harlan J. Berk, Chicago, Illinois.

Lot Essay

Executed circa 1866-1869.

While Henry Chapman Ford lived and worked in Chicago in the 1860s, he made two trips to Colorado, in 1866 and 1869. From his experiences there he created "panoramic western landscapes. . .in emulation of Bierstadt," including the present work. (W.H. Gerdts, Art Across America: Two Centuries of Regional Painting 1710-1920, The Plains States and the West, New York, 1990, p. 107)

In 1868 a treaty between the United States and the Ute Indians created a reservation that encompassed a large portion of Western Colorado and extended into Utah. The White River band of the Ute Indians were in the Northern portion of the reservation that included the Estes Park area. The expansive landscape of the present work includes a beautifully detailed rendering of an Ute summer hunting encampment situated along a meandering river bank.