In the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Memorial Catalogue of the Paintings of Sanford Robinson Gifford, N.A (1881) Camping for the Night on Mansfield Mountain was listed as #469, sold to “E. Pinchot” in 1868. This identification was probably a mistaken transcription from the artist’s handwritten sales record, now lost. The painting was most likely sold to James W. Pinchot, a wealthy entrepreneur, outdoorsman and friend of several artists, especially Gifford. Eight paintings were listed as owned by J. W. Pinchot in the Gifford Memorial Catalogue, all dated or placed in the1860’s. Pinchot’s son, born in 1865, was named for the artist who was also his godfather [mentioned in S. R. Gifford to Elihu Gifford♈, Aug. 10, 1874, Dr. Sanford Gifford coll.]. Twice governor of Pennsylvania, Gifford Pinchot was a well-known conservationist and forestry expert, directly influenced by his father’s interest in European forest management and perhaps indirectly by the origin of his given name. When the painting was offered for sale at 👍Kennedy Galleries in 1964 it was identified as from the Gifford Pinchot collection [noted by James C. Gifford].

Sanford R. Gifford and the artists Richard W. Hubbard and Jerome Thompson were reported to have climbed Mount Mansfield, near Stowe, VT, in August 1858 and camped on the rocky summit, “the chin” of the mountain’s face-like profile as viewed from Stowe. The Home Journal announced they were “the first artists who have sketched there, and they pronounce the place equal in interest to Mount Washington, and in every way a charming spot” [Sept. 4, 1858, “Fine Arts,” p. 3]. This was Gifford’s first American sketching trip after two years abroad and proved inspirational. Twenty-one catalogued paintings resulted that include Mount Mansfield in the title: some dated 1858 or 1859; others undated among works of the 1860s. Three of the titles specifically refer to the camp. One was dated 1859 and exhibited at the National Academy that year; a smaller, known daylight version, dated August 1858, was probably preliminary to it [Ganz collection]. It establishes the composition of a central lean-to against a massive, house-like, cubic boulder boldly contrasted to an adjacent glimpse of aerial-luminous far-distance; other boulders to the left; three figu𝓡res and a dog at a campfire towards the right before “the nose,” a secondary elevation beyond a col; and a fourth figure seated near the lean-to. 

Camping for the Night on Mansfield Mountain— the only nighttime title— is very close to and surely based on the daytime concept. Its slight deviations, such as increasing the area of sky to feature stars and adding dead trees and other foreground objects to picturesquely reflect the light of the campfire, and subtle adjustments of placement, assert the contrast of starlight and firelight. One of the objects added to catch the firelight, a dead tree trunk lying in the left foreground, is characteristic of Gifford’s paintings of the early 1860s, indicating the work’s probable date. Whereas Thompson’s resulting painting imagines the summit with three picnicking couples [Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York], Gifford’s imagery captures the campers’ actual experience. The four men and the dog were included in the major exhibition piece of 1859, Mansfield Mountain [M꧙anoogian Collection], where two men attending the fire are combined with two others and the dog attaining and admiring the view, derived from other Mount Mansfield subjects. The night version positions the campfire more centrally and dramatically before the void of the dim, inscrutable distance. For clarity and contrast it reduces the attendants to two, one squatting in profile to the left of the fire and the other standing starkly silhouetted before it, both casting dramatic, radiating shadows. (A third figure, barely discernible, is seated in the gloom of the lean-to.) Such details as a leather pouch hanging from the roof edge and rifles leaning against it contribute authenticity. The standing figure, an expressive, flat dark shape with dabs of light defining hand on hip and side of face, is masterfully relieved against the smoky glow of the fire melting into depths of hazy darkness.

The rare nighttime effect is a tour de force of semi-obscurity, a near-monochrome of w༒arm browns in the foreground and gray browns in the sky that shift almost imperceptibly between warmer to cooler tones. Touches of dull olive — greens neutralized by the firelight — represent bits of foliage in the foreground and the leafy branches that form the roof of the lean-to. In dramatic contrast is the fire, an impasto spot of intense yellow-white radiating a reddish glow, with yellow-white reflections burnishing nearby figures and more subdued highlights sculpting surrounding objects. The only pure white lights are the tiny pinpoints of stars, with summer constellations— the Big Dipper of Ursa Major and Cassiopeia — clearly recognizable, demonstrating the interest they held for the campers. Gifford, whose dry sense of humor infuses his writings, must have relished this detail. It is easy to imagine James W. Pinchot visiting Gifford’s studio during the 1860s and being enraptured by this visual celebration of intimacy with nature; and his son Gifford Pinchot eventually sharing his father’s appreciation.

W✱e💃 would like to thank Dr. Ila Weiss for this essay.