Thomas Cole's "The Garden of Eden," a masterpiece of American painting thought lost for almost 160 years, has been acquired by the Amon Carter Museum.
"Under terms of the acquisition, the museum cannot reveal the name of the previous owners nor terms of the transaction," said William J. Harkins, Amon Carter's public affairs coordinator.The 38 1/2-by-52 3/4-inch painting was put on display to the public for the first time since 1831.
Harkins said the family that had quietly owned "The Garden of Eden" for generations "contacted the Amon Carter with their offer because of the high reputation of the museum's American collection."
Cole, who was born in 1801 and died in 1848, was one of the founders of the first consciously American landscape schools of painting, the Hudson River School, which identified the nation's unspoiled mountains and rivers with strong spiritual values.
Cole completed "The Garden of Eden" in early 1829 and Bank of New York President Charles Wilkes bought it that year, reportedly for $400, then a substantial price.
The painting dropped from sight in 1831, although it remained known through Cole's preliminary paintings, descriptions by his contemporaries and an engraving by James Smillie that served as the frontispiece to a 1831 edition of the Bible.
Cole was quite familiar with the New England landscape. The background mountain of "The Garden of Eden" appears to be Mount Chocorua in New Hampshire, with palm trees planted among the native oaks and hardwoods. The work also contains detailed images of deer, elephants, swans, butterflies and even small Adam and Eve figures with arms raised toward the rising sun.
Cole scholar Ellwood C. Parry III said, "The rediscovery of this major painting illuminates Thomas Cole's main enterprise in the later 1820s - that is, the attempt to raise landscape to the level of history painting wherein the artist could retell important stories for the moral edification of mankind."