The rise of tourism to the Hudson River Valley and Catskill Mountains during the early nineteenth century brought not only wealthy urbanites but also artists to the rural corners of New England.1 Among them was Edward Delavan Nelson (1821–1871), a successful businessman and painter whose accomplishments have been overshadowed by his longtime teacher, the well-known Hudson River School artist, Asher Brown Durand (1796–1886). Nelson frequently accompanied Durand on sketching trips to upstate New York where they spent weeks working alongside riverbanks and deep in the forests to inspire paintings such as Landscape with Cows from 1865 (Fig. 1) from the Art Properties collection at Columbia University. This canvas and the handful of others attributed to Nelson suggest he was an astute observer of the rapidly changing landscape whose technical acumen and attention to detail far exceed what might be expected of an amateur. Although Landscape with Cows is likely a composite of sketches drawn in different locations, its naturalism and simultaneous commitment to an idyllic American concept of landscape are both characteristic of the Hudson River School approach.

Nelson spent his early years along the Hudson River in Poughkeepsie,2 and by age sixteen was enrolled at Columbia College where he earned a bachelor’s degree in 1841 and a master’s degree in 1844.3 The twenty-three-year-old quickly established himself as a businessman with numerous professional pursuits that did not preclude his involvement in the New York City art scene. As early as 1846, he was a member of the American-Art Union, an organization composed primarily of successful businessmen dedicated to supporting and promoting the arts.4 It was likely through this association or through his role as a trustee of the New-York Gallery of the Fine Arts from around 1850 onward that Nelson met Durand.5 By 1852, the pair was taking sketching trips to upstate New York and continued to travel together for almost two decades.6 Nelson is generally considered Durand’s student and occasional patron, but letters between the two suggest that they were friends first and foremost.7 Durand belonged to a circle of artists represented by the National Academy of Design, who had adopted a naturalistic and reverential approach to landscape painting during the mid-nineteenth century, later known as the Hudson River School.8

While many Hudson River School paintings were no doubt inspired by actual views artists witnessed while traveling, they cannot always be attributed to a single location, as artists like Nelson tended to compile detailed sketches into single compositions upon returning to the studio from long sketching trips.9 Landscape with Cows is evidence of Nelson’s rapidly progressing abilities honed during such trips. The scene is dominated by a river expanding from left to right across the bottom of the canvas, disappearing between dense foliage beyond the two cows as it curves to the left. Mossy rocks, low-lying plant life, and the remnants of a rotting tree are painted with botanical accuracy. The white steeple of a church is just visible at the base of the hill, an easily overlooked reference to nearby human life that might eventually benefit from the meat or milk these cows could provide. It is also a reminder of the deeply spiritual Protestant tradition in which Hudson River School painters worked. Durand was a devout Christian, whose faith influenced his perception of beauty such that nature and religion became deeply entwined. Landscape paintings were considered morally instructive and spiritually exalting because the natural beauty found within them was God’s creation.10

Exactly where Landscape with Cows was painted is difficult to pinpoint, given the Hudson River School preference for studio compilation. However, Durand’s travels during the 1860s were concentrated around Lake George and the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York, so the river Nelson depicted is probably a tributary of the Hudson itself. There was certainly no shortage of farms near its banks to provide bovine models. Even so, the absence of figures in most Hudson River School paintings is striking given the number of wealthy city dwellers and artists who flocked to rural New England during the mid-nineteenth century. This influx of tourists began in the 1820s after the opening of the Erie Canal gave Genesee Valley wheat farmers and flour manufacturers easy access to New York City, which drove their Hudson Valley counterparts into bankruptcy and forced inhabitants to seek alternative livelihoods. Roads built to serve upstate tannery operators and the rapid improvement of steamboats provided the infrastructure visitors needed to access remote regions. Landscape literature, engravings from Europe, and a desire to experience the American wilderness primed urban elites for travel into the mountains. Dozens of hotels sprung up to the delight of some, and the dismay of others.11

In an 1835 essay, the so-called father of the Hudson River School Thomas Cole (1801–1848) complained of the “great mass” who visited the wilderness with no real appreciation for its beauty.12 It took less than two decades for the artists who followed in Cole’s footsteps to become tourist attractions themselves. Kaaterskill Clove, in particular, was advertised in travel guides as a location where one could observe painters at work on their landscape studies.13 In October 1848, Durand wrote that there were nine other artists working in the area at the same time.14 The auspicious removal of human life from landscapes by Hudson River School painters suggests a desire to preserve the land, at least visually, as a pristine order untouched by industry or tourists. It is equally rooted in the nineteenth-century Protestant belief that humans would become insignificant when confronted by a sublime landscape created by God that they could not control or fully comprehend.15

Nelson retired from the business world around 1869 to become a full-time professional painter and moved outside of Manhattan to Scarsdale.16 This second career was tragically cut short when he was hit and killed by a Harlem Railroad train in November 1871.17 The entirety of Nelson’s estate—presumably including all his paintings—went to his wife Susan.18 Dozens of newspapers across the country published obituaries referring to him as a professional painter who met an untimely end.19 Despite the modest acclaim Nelson received in his lifetime, he has since been relegated to the footnotes of Durand’s biography and largely forgotten as a talented artist in his own right. The half dozen paintings by Nelson that have appeared on the art market during the past several decades, including an 1862 painting with stylistic and compositional similarities to Landscape with Cows titled Stony Brook, were purchased by private collectors for anywhere from five hundred to thirty-eight thousand dollars. Landscape with Cows has no auction record and how it ended up in Columbia’s Art Properties collection remains a mystery, but it is documented as hanging in the Low Library by 1965.20 Irrespective of its provenance, Landscape with Cows exemplifies the Hudson River School approach and reimagines an American landscape in idealizing terms, while demonstrating the technical capabilities of an accomplished painter who has until now been lost in his teacher’s shadow.

• 1

  Richard H. Gassan, The Birth of American Tourism: New York, the Hudson Valley, and American Culture, 1790-1835 (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2008), 2-3.

• 2

  Find a Grave, “Edward Delavan Nelson” (2014). https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/137964559/edward-delavan-nelson.

• 3

  Catalogue of Columbia College in the City of New-York Embracing the Names of Its Trustees, Officers, and Graduates Together with a List of All Academical Honors Conferred by the Institution from A.D. 1758 to A.D. 1844, Inclusive (New York: Columbia University, 1844).

• 4

  G.F. Nesbitt, “American Art-Union Transactions for 1846” (1847).

• 5

  Catalogue of the Exhibition of the New-York Gallery of the Fine Arts (New York: E.B. Clayton & Sons, 1850). The New-York Gallery of the Fine Arts was an association formed to create a permanent art museum, but dissolved in 1858, at which point its collection was transferred to the New-York Historical Society.

• 6

  Linda S. Ferber, Kindred Spirits: Asher B. Durand and the American Landscape (New York: Brooklyn Museum, 2007), 217-219. 

• 7

  “The National Academy of Design,” New York Daily Herald (May 23, 1853).

• 8

  John K. Howat, American Paradise: The World of the Hudson River School (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1987),  8-10.

• 9

  Howat, American Paradise, 22-23.

• 10

  Gene Edward Veith, Painters of Faith (Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2001), 59.

• 11

  Kenneth Myers, The Catskills: Painters, Writers, and Tourists in the Mountains 1820-1895 (Yonkers: Hudson River Museum of Westchester, 1987), 30-31, 71.

• 12

  Thomas Cole, “Essay on American Scenery,” American Monthly Magazine (January 1836).

• 13

  Myers, The Catskills, 71.

• 14

  “Catskill Clove, New York,” New-York Historical Society Museum & Library, accessed April 15, 2024, https://emuseum.nyhistory.org/objects/18735/catskill-clove-new-york?ctx=c871aca27829c2d06880f0941de948dc598efb35&idx=26.

• 15

  Veith, Painters of Faith, 59.

• 16

  “Legal Notices,” The Yonkers Gazette (Yonkers: October 23, 1869).

• 17

  “Art Notes,” The Brooklyn Daily Eagle (Brooklyn: November 9, 1871).

• 18

  Wills and Letters, 1777-1983, Westchester County Surrogate’s Court.

• 19

  For example, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle published an obituary on November 9, 1871, reading, “Mr. Nelson, who was a pupil of Durand, was generally conceded to be one of the most accomplished painters, in the particular specialty of forest scenery, among the artists of New York. Mr. Nelson, until within a recent period, was looked upon as an amateur, and as a mere imitator of his master, Mr. Durand…He then assumed the maulstick and brush as profession, and in his later pictures vindicated his reputation as an artist of great originality, some of his works fairly rivaling those of his master in strength and beauty.”

• 20

  Landscape with Cows, curatorial file (New York: Art Properties Collection, April 1967). Art conservator Hiram Howell Hoelzer did some restoration work to the canvas one year later. The craquelure and rippling seen most prominently in the center of the canvas, over the large oak tree, has been visible since the painting was cataloged in 1967.