A study against the weather record
Albert Bierstadt
Merced River, Yosemite Valley
The Met links this studio picture to Bierstadt’s 1863 Yosemite visit. Its 1985 catalogue also reports a challenge to the title. What can the journey’s weather establish?
Title disputedRegional recordsPainted day unknown
The Nephos method
How this study was read
The method in fullWhat is written
The Met links the 1866 studio canvas to Bierstadt’s August 1863 Yosemite visit. Its 1985 catalogue also reports Hendricks’s objection to the title. A later transcription of a camp inscription supplies a dated presence in Yosemite; it does not date this painting’s source sketch.
not the correct title for the work
The Met catalogue (1985), p. 328, reporting Gordon Hendricks, Albert Bierstadt (1974), CL-171; the original Hendricks entry was not inspected.Camped here August 21, 1863. A. Bierstadt, Virgil Williams, E. W. Perry, Fitzhugh Ludlow.
Hutchings, In the Heart of the Sierras (1888), chapter XXV, Register Rock; later transcription of a reported 1863 inscription.
Records of those days
- The Met’s object record and cataloguesThe current title and studio history, the published title dissent, and the 1920 catalogue’s description of clouds in this canvas.
- Ludlow’s account of the journey, published in 1864A travelling companion’s retrospective seasonal description, not daily cloud observations.
- Camp Union, Sacramento: NOAA/CDMP and MRCCDaily rain in calendar August 1863, used strictly as regional context. Camp Union is selected separately from the other Sacramento observers.
Not found or not yet searched
- The title objection has not been resolved; no replacement location is established.
- No securely matched field sketch, depicted day or continuous valley itinerary is in hand.
- No local rain, cloud or river measurement has been verified. The Camp Union originals were not inspected.
Each claim tested
- Does the weather establish the painted place? No. A regional register cannot resolve the disagreement about the title.
- Does the canvas preserve the sky Ludlow described? The museum describes clouds in the picture; Ludlow describes a cloudless season. Their accounts cannot establish what Bierstadt changed in an identifiable sketch.
- What does the Camp Union record add? The digitized rain record supplies a rainless month at the lowland station. It does not measure Yosemite rainfall or cloud cover.
Verdict
The records put the attributed source journey in context. They cannot settle the canvas’s locality, date its sky or prove a change from a particular sketch.
- UnknownThe painted locality The Met’s Yosemite attribution stands alongside its published report of Hendricks’s objection to the title.
- UnknownWeather depicted in the canvas Ludlow’s seasonal words and Camp Union’s regional rain record cannot supply a local painted day.
What this cannot tell you. Calendar August is an analyst-selected context month, not a claim that Bierstadt stayed in Yosemite every day. Hutchings links the reported camp visit to The Domes of the Yo Semite, a different painting. MRCC may fill daily blanks with zeros when they reconcile with the observer’s monthly rain total. Blank measurements at Fort Miller and Thomas Logan’s Sacramento station remain missing, never zero.
Step 1 · The picture and its title
A studio picture with a disputed place
The Met identifies this canvas as Merced River, Yosemite Valley. Its 1985 catalogue connects the picture to Bierstadt’s August 1863 Yosemite journey and describes it as a New York studio work made from studies gathered on that trip. The signature is dated 1866. That dates the finished painting, not the weather it depicts.
The same catalogue records a disagreement. Its reference list reports that Gordon Hendricks, in his 1974 book Albert Bierstadt, entry CL-171, judged the title incorrect. The Met retains the Yosemite identification. Hendricks’s original entry has not been inspected here, so neither his reasoning nor a replacement location is established. The study retains the Met’s title and treats the locality as unresolved.
“not the correct title for the work”
The Met catalogue (1985), p. 328, reporting Hendricks’s objection to the title
This matters before opening a weather register. A title can suggest a place to investigate; it cannot by itself establish where every feature in a studio composition was observed.
Step 2 · The journey and the sky
Ludlow’s season, Bierstadt’s composition
Bierstadt travelled with the writer Fitz-Hugh Ludlow. The Met catalogue places their arrival in August 1863. In 1888, James M. Hutchings transcribed a Register Rock inscription naming Bierstadt, Virgil Williams, E. W. Perry and Ludlow, with the date 21 August 1863. This is a later report of the inscription; the rock itself was not checked. Hutchings associates the visit with The Domes of the Yo Semite, a different painting. The inscription does not date a sketch for this canvas.
The context window is calendar August 1863, chosen around that documented journey. It does not mean the party stayed in Yosemite throughout the month. Ludlow’s article, published in June 1864, describes a cloudless seasonal sky while recalling his first view of El Capitan. He then imagines how the cliff would look against a winter sky. His literary account is not a daily cloud log.
“In California at this season the dome of heaven is cloudless”
Fitz-Hugh Ludlow, Seven Weeks in the Great Yo-Semite (1864), first view of Tu-toch-anula / El Capitan
“fantastic peaks rise sheer from the water into the clouds”
Bryson Burroughs, the Met’s Catalogue of Paintings (1920), p. 16, describing this canvas
The holder’s older description places the painted peaks in clouds; the 1985 entry describes monumental background peaks, a low detailed foreground and muted colour. The picture and Ludlow’s seasonal account therefore offer different presentations of the landscape. They do not establish that Bierstadt added clouds to a particular sketch. No securely matched source sketch or depicted day is in hand, and the geographic title remains disputed.
Step 3 · Regional records
No recorded rain at Camp Union
The usable daily series is Camp Union, in lowland Sacramento, kept by Joseph H. Wythe in this month. It is regional context for the journey, not an observation in Yosemite or at a verified viewpoint for the painting. The NOAA/CDMP register digitized by MRCC separates Camp Union from other Sacramento observers by station number.
For Camp Union alone, the digitized file has 31 unflagged daily rain entries in August 1863. All 31 are zero; their sum is 0.00 inches. This records a rainless month at that station. Rainfall does not measure cloud cover, and a lowland record cannot establish the sky or rainfall in the mountains.
MRCC’s quality-control method permits filling remaining daily blanks with zeros when the entries reconcile with the observer’s monthly total. The original Camp Union forms have not been inspected. These are zeros in the digitized record; they do not establish that the observer wrote a separate zero each day.
Every daily rain entry: Camp Union, August 1863
| Date | Rain, inches |
|---|---|
| 1 August | 0.00 |
| 2 August | 0.00 |
| 3 August | 0.00 |
| 4 August | 0.00 |
| 5 August | 0.00 |
| 6 August | 0.00 |
| 7 August | 0.00 |
| 8 August | 0.00 |
| 9 August | 0.00 |
| 10 August | 0.00 |
| 11 August | 0.00 |
| 12 August | 0.00 |
| 13 August | 0.00 |
| 14 August | 0.00 |
| 15 August | 0.00 |
| 16 August | 0.00 |
| 17 August | 0.00 |
| 18 August | 0.00 |
| 19 August | 0.00 |
| 20 August | 0.00 |
| 21 August | 0.00 |
| 22 August | 0.00 |
| 23 August | 0.00 |
| 24 August | 0.00 |
| 25 August | 0.00 |
| 26 August | 0.00 |
| 27 August | 0.00 |
| 28 August | 0.00 |
| 29 August | 0.00 |
| 30 August | 0.00 |
| 31 August | 0.00 |
The three available Augusts at the same camp
These few months do not establish a climate ranking. The station history names Charles S. Wood for the later years. No other Sacramento station is joined to this series.
| August | Rain, inches | Unflagged entries |
|---|---|---|
| 1863 | 0.00 | 31 |
| 1864 | 0.10 | 31 |
| 1865 | 0.00 | 31 |
The August 1863 rows for Fort Miller and Sacramento observer Thomas Logan have blank measurements. They are missing records, not additional evidence of dry weather.
Step 4 · What can be concluded
A journey in context; a sky still undated
The Met’s account links field studies from 1863 with the finished studio picture of 1866. Its published notice of Hendricks’s title objection leaves a question about place inside that account. Ludlow describes a cloudless season; Camp Union’s digitized rain record supplies separate regional context. Neither source authenticates or refutes the painted clouds.
A securely identified sketch or a document fixing this composition to a viewpoint could test what Bierstadt changed. Without that link, the records cannot show whether he altered the mountains, water or sky. No local rain, cloud or river measurement has been verified for this study.
A question for the classroom: what evidence would connect the museum’s title, the artist’s fieldwork and this finished composition? The title disagreement makes that question part of looking at the picture.
Sources
Every source on this page
Each file was downloaded and given a fingerprint (its sha256). The page is rebuilt from these files and will not build if a fingerprint changes, so every number above comes from them rather than being typed in.
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art, object 10150, accession 09.214.1
sha256 2b2a0cc6e195adbea1627022b4163128d7dd302566d8873bd6516c8393e3fb0c - Spassky et al., American Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, vol. II (1985)
sha256 a7e3df9d1e40d6ba161ac6fd2121ed1ef97fb3f986e083bb0c1a4e33b1dd95a9 - Text extraction of the Met catalogue, p. 327
sha256 64ccec19d04d2ff7eb025e784a9fb9e5b3e2afb1a46e44176d32fdb0fa141a14 - The Met catalogue (1985), continuation of Merced River entry
sha256 60e2957226bde16570b8d94191f2f706a0f436ce3b637b5a43e8254225d039a3 - Text extraction of the Met catalogue, p. 328
sha256 2f3f9ca402ab22f10612ead8e80ab0ee753c177b0a49589ed86dd4eea488763e - Fitz-Hugh Ludlow, Seven Weeks in the Great Yo-Semite (June 1864)
sha256 08d3372d83b8637f1579e432522d5366d4c6ed8e602bde6e540c491493e692da - James M. Hutchings, In the Heart of the Sierras (1888)
sha256 333f360f4795cef032c1b42f192b88e77602fa389a448489762396518a837f7b - Bryson Burroughs, Catalogue of Paintings (Met, fifth edition, 1920)
sha256 b7f534b3e4d6bfec97528704d81ab7daa25ea2147888d095b1bc8ceed30e8194 - Camp Union daily register, NOAA/CDMP, digitized and checked by MRCC
sha256 12669bb9a4aa4827ff4120ef483064a2e3a16422c53755864d0df53a792406a6 - MRCC, Sacramento station histories and variable definitions
sha256 a89ecbd347e01ef6cdf4f80ced21330578139e1a21768f60ad6f43a0429fe7c4 - Fort Miller daily register, NOAA/CDMP and MRCC
sha256 f7563db0a65a288f35eb1f658223dda53c477bf45616a9a31f74af353bd5f46b - Albert Bierstadt, Merced River, Yosemite Valley (1866)
sha256 9ba270ec64d18edceb7207dc1a2c30923da4974f739d3ef0d7765ad71d5e2409 - MRCC, Quality Control of 19th Century Weather Data
sha256 aae1add75d47b265ae31ea649d8ebaa4144f9cf973407f2f8f34d777ccf46f19 - The Met Catalogue of Paintings (1920), page scan
sha256 b1dcb4e51ba0400c8131fd39f4e849901b2387a66389210f01a8a37aaf2a2f79
