1883 - ANTIQUE ETCHING by PETER MORAN - HARVEST AT SAN JUAN NEW MEXICO

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This antique etching by Peter Moran is after his famous painting "Horses Threshing Wheat". The etching is signed "P.M" in the lower right. The etching is identified in pencil on the back "Harvest at San Juan, New Mexico by Peter Moran. The plate size is 6 x 12 1/4 inches. The sheet size is 12 1/8 x 15 5/8 inches. There is some minor foxing and light browning in the border only, the engraving is in very good condition! As with all my items I am starting this auction at $9.99 with NO RESERVE! Biography from the Archives of askART A painter of landscapes, especially scenes with cattle, and etcher, Peter Moran was was the youngest member of the well-known family of American artists to venture from Philadelphia to the American West. His brothers were painters Edward Moran and Thomas Moran. He was born in Bolton, Lancashire, England, and spent most of his professional life in Philadelphia where he had a studio with his wife, Emily Kelley, painter and etcher. Acting and painting scenery for the theater became a major interest. His early career was marked by extensive work on animal studies and landscapes of the Pennsylvania countryside as well as a career in lithography. He studied with his brothers Thomas and Edward Moran and was also influenced by Rosa Bonheur and Constant Troyan. From 1864, he made many trips West where he recorded remarkable sights including ethnological studies of Indian culture. His main interest was New Mexico, but he also traveled in Arizona, Colorado, and Wyoming. In 1879, he accompanied his brother Thomas on a trip to the Grand Tetons, and in 1881, he traveled to Indian pueblos in New Mexico and Arizona with Captain Bourke. Source: Michael David Zellmann, "300 Years of American Art" Biography from William R Talbot Fine Art The younger brother of Thomas Moran, Peter Moran was a painter-etcher best known for his Romantic sensibility and landscape compositions incorporating animals. The Moran family immigrated to the United States from England in 1844, when Peter was three. He began his artistic career as an apprentice to a lithographic firm and eventually studied painting with his brothers Edward and Thomas. He was influenced by the animal paintings of Rosa Bonheur and Constant Troyon and visited England in 1863 to see those of Edwin Landseer. Moran took up etching in 1874, using that medium to record genre scenes that he observed while traveling in New Mexico and Arizona in 1881 on an ethnographic expedition to study Pueblo Indian culture. He later returned to the Southwest in 1890 as an artist for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. In 1882, Moran joined Henry R. Poore, an artist friend, on a visit to Taos Pueblo where the two were given a room and spent a week watching the activities associated with the harvest. Poore recounted the details of their travels in an article titled "A Harvest with the Taos Indians," published in 1883. Peter Moran appears to have been the first American artist to make etchings of New Mexico subjects. Moran eventually gained a reputation in his day of "having been the first among the artists to recognize the picturesque qualities of the scenery of the southwest," according to a book published in 1883, and of capitalizing on "all the glaring sunlight, all the romance of wild life," in the "tablelands and in the cañons of New Mexico." Ref: Clinton Adams, Printmaking in New Mexico, 1880-1990, p.3, pl. 2; Robert R. White, The Southwestern Etchings of Peter Moran: A History and Catalog , Imprint (Spring 1994), pp. 11-28, cat. no. 13 (fig. 19). Biography from Altermann Galleries and Auctioneers, IV Peter, the youngest of the four Moran brothers, was brought to the US at 3. He graduated from Harrison Grammar School in Philadelphia in 1857 and was apprenticed to Herline and Hersel, lithographic printers. He soon became the pupil of his brothers Edward and Thomas in their Philadelphia studio. Peter's interest was in animal subjects rather than marines or landscapes like his more famous brothers. He copied Rosa Bonheur and Van Mercke. In 1863, he returned to England to become t... read more

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