fig. 29 Frederic Edwin Church, Study for “The Icebergs,” 1860. Graphite and gouache on paper, 12Á × 19À in. Courtesy, Olana State Historic Site, New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, OL.1977.145.
fig. 28 Frederic Edwin Church, Icebergs and Wreck in Sunset, 1860. Oil on paperboard mounted on canvas, 8¿ × 13 in. Courtesy of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, Lugano, Switzerland.
58
attempted to find a navigable Northwest Passage. Church finally settled on the configuration of the central dome of the iceberg in a pair of sketches, one in pencil, the other in oil (figs. 29, 30). In these sketches Church’s ideas crystallized, and together they form the genesis of The Icebergs. Although few people caught a glimpse of the work in progress, speculation about the painting abounded in the art press. An anonymous article called “The Iceberg of Torbay,” published in the Atlantic Monthly in October 1860, included thinly veiled references to the artist “C—” that fooled no one, which was the point entirely. Church’s whereabouts were carefully recounted in the New York press, and notices such as this, anticipating the completion of The Icebergs, removed any lingering ambiguity.8 Noble’s book-length narrative, After Icebergs with a Painter (fig. 31), appeared just weeks before the debut of Church’s new painting. Illustrated with lithographs after Church’s Arctic drawings (fig. 32), Noble’s book, which recorded Church’s “season among the icebergs, in which he was again discoverer, pioneer, conqueror,” 9 assured that the debut of The Icebergs was an event eagerly anticipated by the New York art world. Church needed all his marketing skills for his Arctic masterpiece, for twelve days before its debut the bombardment of Fort Sumter realigned the nation’s priorities. The shock of a nation finding itself at war rippled through the art market. Church went ahead with the unveiling of his painting at Goupil’s Gallery in New York as scheduled on April 24.10 However, he made a critical concession 59