At the head of the Saco River, above Fryeburg, Maine, is North Conway, New Hampshire. Following the river is flat valley land, called "interval land" between the river and rise of the White Mountain foothills. This land goes north directly toward Mount Washington and the Presidential Range. North Conway is a village at the head of this fertile valley. The original village was reached after traveling through exceptionally picturesque farm land, among the farm buildings, along the Saco River, before the rising foothills and, seen above all of this, the White Mountains to the north. It is this last that capped the vista. This vista was well understood to be the best of picturesque at the middle fall harvest season when the corn was bundled in the fields, the leaves changing color to gold and red, the sky a crisp clear blue and the mountain tops white with their first snow. I can remember, when young, going up the valley in this fall splendor often. Today, this same valley is filled full (the whole valley is full) of large "factory outlets" and their paved parking lots. To take a photograph of this valley and the mountains… and NOT have a trace of modern man in it… is impossible… for even the reserved vista sites have …condos on the mountain sides "off in the distance".
Before this compromise of "tourist destination" decimated the farm land, all viewers were awed by the harvest beauty. Benjamin Bellows Grant Stone ("B. B. G. Stone"), a Hudson River School White Mountain region artist painted an autumn scene of this harvest beauty near North Conway. In 1867 he sold the painting to the very popular Louis Prang & Co. (Boston) who used a very exacting high quality process to construct superior chromolithographic prints that included superb color overprinting and even an impressed texture to their stiff paper boards to simulate canvas. Stone sold his painting for $50.00. In 1869 Prang published their chromolithograph version titled "HARVEST NORTH CONWAY, WHITE MOUNTAINS" "after B. B. G. Stone" and sold $21,000. worth (at $5.00 a copy, framed) in the first year. If not a legendary "most popular chromo ever published", it certainly was Prang's most profitable. The company sold the original canvas for $125.00 in 1879 and… it has never been found again.
I picture an actual 1869-1870 print still in it's original gold gilt frame. This frame is actually just the original frame liner and would have had a Victorian style walnut outer frame. I show the whole print in the liner (under it's original glass, as issued), the farm scene with the mountains in the back ground, a close up of the corn bundles -formulaic in style-, the Prang title label on the back and the "LIST OF PRANG'S CHROMOS, SEPTEMBER 1, 1870" label too. In this label, in the detail photograph, one may note the Stone "HARVEST" chromo listed at the top of the right column.
The Stone view did not stop here. So popular was this Prang chromo, two prominent secondary productions resulted. First, one may find MANY amateur copies …usually oil paint on stiff artist board… of the Prang version. MANY. Once one's eye knows to denote… denote them it will. They range from $10.00 to about $350. for a "good one". Second, other print makers… well into the 20th century… copied the Prang chromo in various ways and styles. I picture a contemporary 1870 "just down the street" Haskell & Allen, Boston, hand colored stone lithograph knock-off. Prang's success probably drove them wild and they got their own version before the public as fast as they could. As most viewers do not know this scene, it's location and it's heritage, the Haskell & Allen knock-off can be found very cheap ($20.00 - $65.00) with vigilance. An actual Prang may slip by too; in original frame with the labels, et al, as low as $50. but no surprise to see it tagged $350.00. Don't buy one that lacks the wonderful labels.
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