Public collection via the Cleveland Museum of Art
AT-00009480Study, North Conway, New Hampshire
About the Artwork
Johnson’s devotion to carefully observing nature is evident in his detailed rendering of a riverbed. Located in a village that provided a popular jumping-off point for tourists visiting the White Mountains, this untamed site features a haphazard arrangement of angled boulders, slippery moss, splintered tree branches, and dense undergrowth. Contemporary travel guidebooks often cautioned against the physical challenges—and the potential for injury—encountered by venturing into such inner recesses of the woods; one warned that “wild forest-clambering” could be akin to “fighting a phalanx of porcupines.”
Inscriptions
Signed lower right: "D. Johnson. / 1851"; inscribed lower left: "D.J. 1851. (false); signed on the back: "Study. North Conway. N.H. / David Johnson 1851]"
Provenance
(R. Schoelkopf Gallery, New York)
Exhibition history
Year in Review: 1967. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 29-December 31, 1967). Visions of Landscape: East and West. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 17-March 21, 1982). Mount Washington: The Crown of New England. Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, NH (organizer) (October 1, 2016-January 16, 2017).
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Quick Overview
- Artist
- David Johnson (American, 1827–1908)
- Date
- 1851
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- Framed: 63.8 x 74.3 x 7 cm (25 1/8 x 29 1/4 x 2 3/4 in.); Unframed: 43.2 x 53.3 cm (17 x 21 in.)
- Type
- Painting
- Classification
- Painting
- Department
- American Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund
- Accession no.
- 1967.125
More by David Johnson in museum collections
Open-access museum record · AT-00009480
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