Live Auction 21168Stewards of the West: The Knobloch Collection
THOMAS MORAN (1837-1926)
Lot 10

THOMAS MORAN (1837-1926)

The Transept

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USD 239,400

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THOMAS MORAN (1837-1926)
The Transept
oil en grisaille on paper laid down on board
23 3⁄4 x 34 1⁄2 in. (60.3 x 87.6 cm.)
Painted in 1882.

The artist.
Major John Wesley Powell, commissioned from the above, 1882.
Major James A. Maher, 1902.
Mrs. Edith Wilder Scott, Wallingford, Pennsylvania, sister-in-law of the above, 1919.
Private collection, by descent.
Sotheby's, New York, 27 May 1999, lot 51, sold by the above.
Acquired by the late owner from the above.

Specialist note

The present work was reproduced as an illustration for American geologist Clarence E. Dutton's 1882 book Tertiary History of the Grand Cañon District with Atlas. A copy of Dutton's atlas will accompany this lot.

The collaboration between Moran and Dutton was assigned by Major John Wesley Powell, and the artist contributed nine works to illustrate Dutton's text detailing the results of their geological surveys of the region. Thurman Wilkins writes of the present work, "His work for Dutton eventually came to a climax in The Transept, based on a sketch by William H. Holmes and published in the atlas to the Tertiary History—one of the best paintings of the Grand Canyon ever made..." (Thomas Moran: Artist of the Mountains, Norman, Oklahoma, 1966, p. 90)