Exhibition and purchase in London '' (1865): a return to the northern theme. Oil on canvas; .
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C. Before the canvas was exhibited in London in June 1863, Church renamed it
The Icebergs, and added the ship's mast. The mast provides a sense of scale and is a concession to viewers who found the painting lacking in symbolism; English viewers might now have seen it as a tribute to Franklin's expedition. A
chromolithograph was made in 1864; Church had put off this reproduction in the US based on the painting's reception. The canvas was well-received in London. Attending a preview for the painting were scientists and luminaries of Arctic expedition such as
John Tyndall,
Jane Franklin (second wife of the deceased
John),
Francis McClintock,
John Rae,
George Back,
Edward Belcher, and
Richard Collinson.
The Icebergs was purchased by
Edward Watkin, a British
member of parliament and businessman who played a role in the development of a trans-continental North American railroad. The asking price is unknown, but was probably in the range of $10,000 to $11,500. Watkin hung the painting at his home,
Rose Hill, now part of
Manchester, England. This was the first and only time that Church found a British patron, although he had tried before.
As artistic influence Huntington, whose writing in the 1960s sought to explain the earlier fascination with a then-forgotten artist, explained Church's intentions and the meaning of a landscape of icebergs to a 19th-century American audience: "These grand, mysterious, elemental creatures of the forces were Church's
Moby Dycks [sic]. But, as anyone who has read
Melville will realize, there is a fundamental difference between the two men. The writer sought to tell his fellow-men that their powers were finite. The painter sought to tell his fellow-men that their powers were infinite. It is the difference between profound Irony and profound Hope.... In 1859, Church's posture before the world was one of absolute confidence." Other artists were encouraged by the popular exhibition of
The Icebergs to create their own Arctic pictures. In the US, marine artist
William Bradford travelled to the North Atlantic a number of times beginning in 1861. Bradford was already interested in the Arctic, but Church's painting became an impetus for his career as an Arctic explorer, lecturer, and artist. His Arctic and iceberg paintings were exhibited in the US, England, and Germany.
Albert Bierstadt made a number of iceberg paintings into the 1880s, and
Thomas Moran produced
Spectres of the North in 1891. The exhibitions of
The Icebergs in England probably influenced
Edwin Landseer's 1864 painting,
Man Proposes, God Disposes, which depicts two polar bears tearing at a wreckage that would evoke the lost Franklin expedition. In 1865, Church returned to the northern theme in a major painting,
Aurora Borealis, which, together with his
Cotopaxi and
Chimborazo, was shown in London that year in a three-painting exhibition. In 1863 he produced a smaller canvas of
The Icebergs, then called
To Illumine the Iceberg (29 × 47 cm), for patron
Samuel Hallett, who paid $300; it is likely the same painting known as
The Iceberg and now in the collection of the
Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Connecticut.
Loss, rediscovery, and auction Following the death of Watkin in 1901,
The Icebergs, as art historian
Eleanor Harvey put it, "more or less sank from sight for three quarters of a century". Rose Hill had become a boys' home, where the painting remained hanging all the while in a little-visited upper landing (but for a six-year gap when the painting was donated to a church, which eventually returned it after it obstructed a local drama club's production). Meanwhile, the American art market lost interest in Church and the
Hudson River School. As interest increased in the 1970s, at least two American art dealers began to search for Church's "lost" painting, the lithograph of which had appeared on the cover of a 1966 book about Church in case it might help locate the painting. Both dealers came very close to locating it—some confusion arose from an 1867 report by
Henry Tuckerman that a "Mr.
Watson, M.P." had purchased the painting, which was "corrected" to "Watkin
s" by a Boston paper in 1890; these were all valid surnames of potential M.P.s. One investigator ended their journey at a nearby house, and another identified Rose Hill as a likely location, but was discouraged from trying to access the facility. Instead, she spoke by phone with the matron, Mair Baulch, who did not know about the painting in the home. The next year, Baulch independently investigated the painting when she was looking to raise £14,000 for another property. She inquired by letter to the
Art Institute of Chicago, which she had once visited, and got as far as negotiating a price (up to $150,000 USD) with
Milo Naeve, curator of the Institute's American arts department. The
Manchester City Council by this time intervened, identifying the painting as city property, and refused the Art Institute's first offer. Instead, a city manager contacted
Sotheby's in London, and the painting was transferred to the
Manchester City Art Gallery. The gallery wanted to keep the painting, but Sotheby's estimate of $500,000 was too significant to ignore. The painting was shipped to Sotheby's in New York City, where it was confirmed to be in excellent condition, needing only cleaning with soap and water, removal of
varnish, and adjustments to the stretchers. The importance of the painting drew more sellers to Sotheby's planned auction, hoping to capitalize on the increasing interest in the semi-annual event. On October 25, 1979, eight to ten bidders participated in the auction of
The Icebergs, which lasted almost four minutes. Two telephone bidders remained at the $2 million mark, with the winning bid coming at $2.5 million. ==
The Iceberg (1891)==