The Last Load

1890, printed 1895/1896

Alfred Stieglitz

Associated Names
Alfred Stieglitz

Artist, American, 1864 - 1946

The image shows a rural scene in sepia tone. A group of people is working with a hay cart. The horse-drawn cart is filled with hay. Some individuals are adjusting the load on top of the haystack, while others are on the ground. A horse is hitched to the cart on the right. In the distance, there are rugged mountain peaks and a forested slope. The overall color palette is monochromatic.

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    platinum print

  • Credit Line

    Alfred Stieglitz Collection

  • Dimensions

    sheet (trimmed to image): 15.5 × 12.2 cm (6 1/8 × 4 13/16 in.)
    page size: 34.4 × 27.2 cm (13 9/16 × 10 11/16 in.)

  • Accession Number

    1949.3.62

  • Volume Title

    Sun Prints, 4

  • Stieglitz Estate Number

    76B

    Part of Stieglitz Key Set Online Edition

    Learn more

  • Key Set Number

    70

Associated Artworks

See all 34 artworks
This is a photograph of two oxen yoked together in a field. The image depicts two oxen standing side by side in a field with a dirt-covered ground. The oxen are fitted with harnesses and a yoke. The background shows a distant horizon. The photo is in a grainy sepia tone.

An Idyll

Alfred Stieglitz

1887

The image shows a body of water with mountains in the distance. The point of view is elevated, capturing the shoreline and the water. A person leans towards a cow, holding its halter by the rocky shore. The horizon is high in the image, with the mountains forming a dark outline against the sky. The mountains appear as a soft silhouette due to the diffuse lighting. The image has a grainy and vintage texture. The color palette is monochromatic, with shades of gray and sepia. A small boat with figures is on the water, and a larger vessel is docked to the right.

The Unwilling Bath

Alfred Stieglitz

1887

This is an image of a blacksmith workshop. It shows a scene in front of a rustic building with textured stonework and arched doorways. There is a blacksmith’s anvil in the center, along with tools and a vice on a wooden bench. The entrance has an intricately carved arch. To the right, there’s a cart wheel, and sunlight casts shadows across the cobblestone. The setting conveys a sense of historical craftsmanship and rural life, with deep contrast and details in the photograph bringing out the texture of the building and ground.

Before the Smithy's

Alfred Stieglitz

1890

The image shows a man leaning his head on his hand, positioned with his face resting on his left hand. He has a mustache, thin-framed eyeglasses, and thick, greying hair that curls slightly at the edges. He is dressed in a formal jacket, a white shirt, and a black bow tie. The background is a soft, dark blur.

Alfred Stieglitz

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Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Georgia O'Keeffe; gift to NGA, 1949.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

2002

  • Alfred Stieglitz: Known and Unknown, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, June 2–September 2, 2002; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, October 6, 2002–January 5, 2003

Bibliography

2002

  • Greenough, Sarah. Alfred Stieglitz: The Key Set: The Alfred Stieglitz Collection of Photographs. Washington, 2002: vol. 1, cat. 70.

Inscriptions

by Alfred Stieglitz, on interleaving tissue, lower right, in graphite: The Last Load / 1890

Wikidata ID

Q64037635

Scholarly Remarks and Key Set Data

Remarks

In August 1890 Stieglitz travelled to Cortina d’Ampezzo, located at the base of the Dolomite mountains in Italy, and Sterzing in the Tyrol, near Innsbruck, Austria. He later wrote: “After a severe and long term of experimental laboratory work, I managed to get a few days of vacation in order to run down to that picturesque and at the same time grandly situated village, Cortina, the headquarters of mountain tourists in the Ampezzo Valley.” Although plagued by poor weather, he made a day trip to Lago di Misurina and on returning to Cortina, “met a crowd of peasants working in the fields, the result, which gives one an idea of the beauty of the surrounding country” (“Cortina and Sterzing,” in Sun Pictures from Many Lands [London, 1892], 60–61).

Lifetime Exhibitions

A print from the same negative—perhaps a photograph from the Gallery’s collection—appeared in the following exhibition(s) during Alfred Stieglitz’s lifetime:

1891, New York, Fourth Annual Joint Exhibition (no. 313, as Loading Hay, Ampezzo Valley)
1891, New York, Society of Amateur Photographers (no. 229, as Loading Hay, Ampezzo Valley)
probably 1892, New York, The Society of Amateur Photographers of New York (as Cortina (Ampezzo Valley), lantern slide)

Lifetime Publications

A reproduction of this work appeared in the following publication(s) during Alfred Stieglitz’s lifetime:

“Art in Photographs,” The Sun (24 May 1891): 16 (ill., The Last Load)

John Brisben Walker, “Alfalfa Farming at the Foot of the Rocky Mountains,” The Cosmopolitan 12:1 (November 1891): 92 (ill., The Last Load)

William George Oppenheim, “Distinguished Photographers of To-Day,” The Photographic Times 23 (1 December 1893): 691 (ill., The Last Load, photogravure)

The American Amateur Photographer 6:1 (January 1894): opp. 3 (ill., The Last Load)

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