Mount Corcoran
c. 1876-1877
Painter, American, 1830 - 1902

To create this landscape, Albert Bierstadt drew on his experiences seeing the Rocky and Sierra Nevada mountains while traveling through the West in the 1860s. The snow-capped peak, clear mountain lake, and towering pines appear in many of the artist’s Western landscapes. Despite the specific title and convincing sense of place, this scene is imagined.
Bierstadt first exhibited the painting as Mountain Lake but changed the title to entice Washington, DC, collector William Wilson Corcoran. The artist even supplied a map showing the supposed location of Mount Corcoran. The flattery worked. Corcoran purchased the painting, his first by Bierstadt, in 1878.

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 71
Artwork overview
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Medium
oil on canvas
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Credit Line
-
Dimensions
overall: 154.1 × 243.5 cm (60 11/16 × 95 7/8 in.)
framed: 214.9 × 302.3 × 21.6 cm (84 5/8 × 119 × 8 1/2 in.) -
Accession
2014.79.4
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Artwork history & notes
Provenance
Collection of the artist, New York; purchased 1878 by the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington; acquired 2014 by the National Gallery of Art.
Associated Names
Exhibition History
1877
52nd Annual Exhibition, National Academy of Design, New York, 1877, no. 452, as Mountain Lake.
1947
Loan to display with permanent collection, Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, 1946-1947.
1949
De Gustibus: An Exhibition of American Paintings Illustrating a Century of Taste and Criticism, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 1949, no. 21.
1964
Art of the American Frontier, IBM Gallery, New York, March-April 1964, no. 1.
Albert Bierstadt, A Retrospective Exhibition, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, August-September 1964, no. 65.
1966
Past and Present: 250 Years of American Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 1966, unpublished checklist.
1972
National Parks and the American Landscape, National Collection of Fine Arts, Washington, 1972, unnumbered catalogue.
1981
The American West: Selections from the Anschutz Collection and the Corcoran Collection, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 1981, no. 12.
1998
New Worlds From Old: Australian and American Landscape Painting of the Nineteenth Century, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 1998-1999, no. 81, repro.
2005
Encouraging American Genius: Master Paintings from the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Parrish Art Museum, Southampton; Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte; John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, 2005-2007, checklist no. 42.
2008
The American Evolution: A History through Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 2008, unpublished checklist.
2009
American Paintings from the Collection, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 6 June-18 October 2009, unpublished checklist.
2013
American Journeys: Visions of Place, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 21 September 2013-28 September 2014, unpublished checklist.
Bibliography
1882
Macleod, William. Catalogue of the Paintings, Statuary, Casts, Bronzes, &c. of the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Washington, 1882: 57, no. 90.
1887
Macleod, William. Catalogue of the Paintings, Statuary, Casts, Bronzes, &c. of the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Washington, 1887: 59, no. 90.
1947
Corcoran Gallery of Art. Handbook of the American Paintings in the Collection of the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Washington, 1947: 43.
2011
Strong, Lisa. "Albert Bierstadt, Mount Corcoran." In Corcoran Gallery of Art: American Paintings to 1945. Edited by Sarah Cash. Washington, 2011: 30, 105, 117, 140-141, 267-268, repro.
2016
Zambello, Francesca. "Creating the World of the Ring." Playbill for Richard Wagner: The Ring of the Nibelung (Washington National Opera, 2016). New York, 2016: 12, color repro.
Inscriptions
lower right, AB in monogram: ABierstadt
Wikidata ID
Q20188820