Mount Washington from North Conway

Mount Washington’s distinctive peak and sweeping views of the surrounding New Hampshire landscape attracted countless 19th-century painters and Hudson River School masters, including Thomas Cole, Asher B. Durand, Albert Bierstadt and John Frederick Kensett. Transportation to the region improved in 1851 with the opening of the St. Lawrence and Atlantic Railroads from Portland, Maine, to Gorham, New Hampshire, which provided access to the region within eight miles of Mount Washington. Tourists and artists flocked to the area, where views from nearby North Conway were particularly dramatic. Kensett has been credited with making the local landscape famous through his monumental Mount Washington from the Valley of North Conway in the collection of the Davis Museum at Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts. The present painting shares the same vantage point as the Davis Museum example, incorporating the vastness of the valley and unique topographical features of the region to great effect.