| Medium: | oil on canvas |
| Size: | 30 x 50 in (76 x 127 cm) |
| Inscription: | unsigned |
| Verso: | l/r: "$500.00", in an unknown hand; titled "Mt. Lyell. Sierra Nevada Mts." in the artist's characteristic block-letter hand; "19" in an unknown hand. (See Note 1.) |
| Provenance: | Acquired in San Francisco by Hanifin's Arts & Antiques, Carson City, Nevada; sold in 2020 to private collection, Incline Village, Nevada. |
| Exhibited: | A painting titled "Mt Lyell" was exhibited at the Mechanics' Institute Eighteenth Industrial Exhibition in San Francisco but the gallery list for that exhibition provides only the title, so one can neither include nor exclude the possibility that it was this painting. |
| Citations: | Personal communications with the owner in 2025. |
| Attribution: | Being unsigned, attribution must be based on other aspects of the painting. The overall composition, the palette, the bright central focus, the botanically accurate trees, the foreground debris, and the more distant planes being less finished are all typical of Schafer's work. The back of the canvas appears to be of about the right age and the title inscription appears to be in the artist’s characteristic block-letter style. |
| Site: | Mount Lyell is on the eastern border of Yosemite National Park but the view that includes major rock formations is unusual. The painting may be a composite. See Note 2. |
| Note: | 1. The period following "Mt. Lyell" and following part of the inscription being lighter both suggest that "Sierra Nevada Mts" was an afterthought. 2. The snow-capped mountain has the profile of Mount Lyell, the rock formation near the center resembles El Capitan, and the nearer rock formation may be Sentinel rock as viewed from the east. However, both of those rock formations are on the western side of Yosemite National Park and are in locations from which Mount Lyell, which is located on the eastern boundary of Yosemite Park, cannot be seen. |
| Identification: | Title from Artist's verso inscription. |
| In index(es): | Title list, Yosemite Valley--other views, paintings probably attributable to Schafer |
![[photo]](../smalls/p/img2065.jpg)