Winter Scene

"On a visit in February 1856 to the studios of the Art-Union building, a writer for the Home Journal reported that 'Mignot...is painting a large and impressive winter-scene,' likely referring to [the present work] Winter Scene completed and dated later that year." (Louis Remy Mignot: A Southern Painter Abroad, Raleigh, North Carolina, 1996, p. 52) Depicting Newburgh, New York, near the Hudson River with a view looking west to the hills, Winter Scene closely relates to Mignot's small oil on panel A Winter View from Newburgh, New York (1856, Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York), which was likely completed as an on-the-spot study for this large-scale landscape painting. This was an important series for Mignot's career in establishing his reputation as an American landscape painter, particularly of snowscapes, following his return in 1855 from years studying abroad in The Hague. Indeed, "The completion and sale of Winter View from Newburgh to [prominent collector Elias] Magoon was undoubtedly one of the artist's first transactions in New York City." (Louis Remy Mignot: A Southern Painter Abroad, p. 52)