Image From the Castellani Art Museum of Niagara University
Preserving Niagara River Views at the Castellani Art Museum
Seminary of Our Lady of Angels, Suspension Bridge, N.Y., by C. Gooch. Offset lithograph reproduction from History of Niagara County, N.Y., 1878.
By Mary Helen Miskuly
Just about a quarter mile from the Niagara River, the Castellani Art Museum of Niagara University’s (CAM) collection contains historic local views that many—both Western New Yorkers and visitors alike—may never have known existed. From Niagara Falls north to Youngstown, countless artists have recorded the scenic beauty of the Lower Niagara River. While industrialization was overtaking portions of the Niagara River’s banks in the 1800s, artists selectively edited their views to capture the enduring natural beauty and power of the river. Many of the locations depicted in these works, however, have since been obliterated by structures built over the past two centuries, forever altering the artistic landscape and eliminating the artists’ original vantage points.
In planning for the 2023 CAM exhibition, Northward: Niagara River Views, several paintings other prints of the lower Niagara River created between 1811 and 1888 were brought together, including one painting that has never been shown before. In the process, many new and interesting facts about the collection, and the beautiful river it documents, came to light. The exhibition was largely drawn from the CAM’s Charles Rand Penney Collection of Historical Prints, but also included a “mystery” painting from the collection that was conserved in 2022 as well as a selection of paintings from a generous supporter of the museum.
Solving an Artistic Mystery
Incredibly, the centerpiece of the Northward exhibition was unviewable just a few years ago. It is not unusual for artwork to come into a museum’s collection with existing damage. In these cases, it often gets stored away for a very long time until funds are available for care. Such was the case with the painting chosen as the centerpiece for Northward, titled “Niagara University.” It is a beautiful pastoral scene depicting the western side of NU’s Clet Hall, a majestic stone building that is still in use today, as well as a sweeping view of the Niagara River all the way out to Lake Ontario. Unfortunately, the center of the painting was punctuated by several holes of various sizes and shapes, requiring significant conservation work in order to be placed on exhibit.
Such repair work was able to begin 2021, after the museum secured a conservation grant from the Greater Hudson Heritage Network (GHHN). The work was expertly undertaken by Eileen Sullivan of Aurora Art Conservation, LLC. Sullivan’s skill and dedication in restoring this vital piece of Niagara University’s history were crucial to bringing the painting back to its former glory. The careful stewardship of works such as “Niagara University” ensures that future generations have a visual record of their local history. The museum is fortunate to have access to several talented conservators in Western New York and benefits from an ongoing relationship that spans several years and several different projects.
But to talk of the conservation work is to get a bit ahead of the story. To even apply for the GHHN conservation grant, background information on the artist first had to be established. In looking for the painting in the museum records, it was recorded as being created by an “F. Prichardt” and its acquisition number indicated that it was one of the first artworks acquired for the Niagara University art collection, which now falls under the care of CAM. An examination of the back of the frame revealed that it had been hand labeled, in marker, “Diocese of Buffalo.” This suggested that it likely came to NU as a gift, which made sense as the university comprised the main subject of the painting and it was an historic scene. In fact, the view depicted in the painting is impossible today, since most of the developed properties along the gorge now obstruct this vantage point.
With these sparse bits of information in hand, the search for further details about the artist began. Nothing came up under the name Prichardt but works by an F. Richardt, who also executed paintings of Niagara Falls, were frequently encountered. Richardt’s paintings, however, seemed too fine—being closer in skill to legendary landscape painters Thomas Cole or Frederic Edwin Church—and so the thought of his being the creator of this dirty and damaged mystery work was dismissed.
With the deadline for the Greater Hudson Heritage Network grant approaching, there was more sleuthing to be done. The layer of accumulated grime, combined with the physical damage, made many of the painting’s details difficult to make out. An examination of the painting through a magnifying glass, however, revealed that there was a roundabout in the middle ground, with a knoll of grass that partially obscured horses and a cart. In addition, two men could be made out along the edge of the gorge. They appeared to be chatting, taking a break or eating lunch. One man is seated alongside a cluster of stones that look stacked and for a specific purpose. The presence of the cart and horses made the proverbial “light bulb” go on.
Back in 2019, a Niagara University student named Ryan Dutchman had penned an interesting paper about the former Our Lady of Angels Cemetery. The cemetery was located where the New York State Power Authority now stands and was the final resting place for clergymen from Our Lady of Angels Seminary (the name under which Niagara University was originally founded). Perhaps the men in the painting were working in a small stonecutting quarry where the headstones were cut? Or maybe they were cutting stone blocks for a wall or buildings on the NU campus that were to be constructed. In the scene, Our Lady of Angels Seminary, located directly across the road from Our Lady of Angels Cemetery, was clearly in operation, based on the inclusion of clergymen and possibly students strolling toward the foreground on the right side of the painting.
Ultimately, it was determined that whoever had labeled the back of the painting misread the “R” in the signature as “Pr,” therefore concluding that the artist’s name was Prichardt. This painting was executed by Ferdinand Richardt after all!
Ferdinand Richardt
Not only an accomplished painter and printmaker in his Danish homeland, (Joachim) Ferdinand Richardt (1819-1895) was best known in the United States for his magnificent paintings of Niagara Falls and other historically significant sites like Mount Vernon in Virginia and Independence Hall in Philadelphia. He first came to Western New York in 1855 and painted 32 scenes of Niagara Falls. Today, these works can be found in the collections of such notable institutions as: The White House, the Carnegie Art Museum in Pittsburgh, the Hecksher Museum of Art, Huntington, NY, the Canton Museum of Art in Ohio and The Buffalo History Museum, to name a few.
In 1857, Richardt’s paintings were included in the Niagara Gallery exhibition andauction, held in New York City at the gallery of Henry H. Leeds, & Co., along with many of his finest paintings of European landscape and architecture. Although the exhibition was well received, not all of the works sold. He returned to Copenhagen at the beginning of the American Civil War but emigrated back to the U.S. with his wife and daughter in 1873. Upon his return, Ferdinand painted numerous scenes across the country, eventually traveling west with his family in the winter of 1874. The Richardts settled in Oakland, CA, where Ferdinand died in 1895. He is buried in Oakland’s Mountain View Cemetery, designed by Frederic Law Olmsted, the designer of Buffalo’s park system.
Returning to the CAM painting, the visual clues discovered in the work suggest that Richardt likely painted it upon his return to the U.S. in 1873, prior to heading west the following year. The buildings that are—and are not—included in the painting are, perhaps, the strongest indications of timing. The absence of the university chapel, which dates to 1874, suggests that the painting was created prior to that date. The Gooch painting at the beginning of this article, which was created in 1878, clearly shows this structure adjacent to Clet Hall. Speaking of Clet Hall, this iconic university structure was not built until 1862, after Richardt had returned to Europe. This would thus preclude the painting’s being created during his pre-Civil War visits to the region.
Richardt scholar Melinda Stewart Young has noted that the artist was never quite in the right place at the right time. “Looking back, we can see that Richardt suffered consistently poor timing in his choice of moments to try his luck in America,” she observes. “Not only were the years of his first American sales, 1857 and 1859, known as years of economic panic, when circulating money was short, but 1873 turned out to be the same! Despite this misfortune, however, Richardt moved quickly to place his work before the public.” Perhaps when he arrived back in Niagara Falls, his painting of Niagara University was a quick commission to generate some much-needed income. After all, he knew the area well and had painted an abbreviated scene in the same location in 1857.
Beyond his landscape work, Ferdinand was also known for his detailed architectural engravings and was especially appreciated for his manor house paintings and prints of Denmark. He documented 240 manor houses throughout Copenhagen in his lifetime. Those prints served as preliminary studies for many paintings and were the artist’s primary source of income. Though not as frequent a subject in his prints, there are two such illustrations that focus on Niagara Falls, featuring the John Roebling Suspension Bridge, in the Charles Rand Penney Collection of Historical Prints.
A Collector and Partner
Beyond the identification and preservation of the Richardt painting, a pivotal role in the artistic assemblage of Northward was also played by Peter Barton Hutt, an enthusiast of Niagara regional paintings. Originally from Western New York with familial ties to Lewiston as well as to the former Hutt’s Dairy in Kenmore, Hutt’s passion for the region’s history is evident in his collection. In preparation for Northward, he was approached about the loan of a specific painting that would complete the exhibition’s narrative. In response, however, Hutt kind-heartedly agreed to lend three, allowing the museum to better place the Richardt painting in the larger context of artwork depicting views of the lower river, while introducing exhibit goers to other artists whose work may not be familiar to local history enthusiasts. The addition of art from the Hutt collection to that already held by the CAM also allowed for some interesting observations—both regarding the features and landscape of the area in the mid-late 19th century and regarding what may well have been a frequent and preferred vantage point for the artists who chose to record them on canvas.
Returning to our study of the Richardt painting, the artist’s vantage point was near the modern intersection of Lewiston Road and Hyde Park Boulevard, just north of Devil’s Hole. Today, if one looks northward toward Toronto on a clear day, Lewiston Road, the Power Vista, the Adam Beck Power Plants on the Canadian side and the Lewiston-Queenston Bridge dominate most of this landscape. Comparing Richardt’s work with an 1853 map by Samuel Geil, which resides in the CAM’s Charles Rand Penney Collection of Historical Prints, confirms that Lewiston Road was originally a straight line all the way from the property of Samuel DeVeaux north to the trainline at the edge of the Niagara Escarpment. S. DeVeaux (as noted on the map) was the man who sold his farmland to Fr. John Lynch, founder of Our Lady of Angels Seminary and Niagara University.
Another potentially relevant feature indicated on this 1853 map is the “Chasm Tower.” Very few images of this tower are known to exist, but it is featured in two prints from the CAM collection. A tinted lithograph by Frederick Knight from 1850—the only southern-looking artwork included in the exhibition— features a view of the lower Niagara River toward Niagara University. Before NU was built, the Chasm Tower, which is visible at the upper center of the print, was a wooden viewing platform that towered over the gorge at the current location of the New York Power Authority. Details on who built the tower have been lost over time, but its brief history was included in Hackstaff’s New Guide Book of Niagara Falls, 1853 by George H. Hackstaff.
This 1850 tinted lithograph by Frederick Knight is the only southern-looking view selected for the Northward exhibition and looks up the Niagara Gorge from the Niagara Escarpment and is one of the few extant images to include the Chasm Tower. Credit: Collection of the Castellani Art Museum of Niagara University. Generous donation from Dr. Charles Rand Penney, partially funded by the Castellani Purchase Fund, with additional funding from Mr. and Mrs. Thomas A. Lytle.
This detail from the lithograph clearly shows the tower’s location.
“This Tower, erected in the summer of 1849, for the sole purpose of extending the view over one of the most interesting prospects in the world, is built upon a knole [sic] of land, called ‘Mont Eagle,’” the guidebook explains. “It stands close to the perpendicular bank of the Niagara River, 100 rods north of the Devil’s Hole. The top of the Tower to which the spectator ascends by flights of easy and convenient stairs, is about 400 feet from the water’s edge.” The author continues on to describe, in great detail, 21 important historic views from the tower and gorge.
One of the paintings loaned by Hutt—a ca. 1855 view of the gorge and the Lewiston Landing by Carl Grüner (1819-1883)—documents a part of the village’s history not known to many. The view northward is somewhat of a bird’s eye perspective, showing the farm, orchard and cider mill of the Colt Family on Lewiston Road. This property existed into the 20th century, until the Robert Moses Parkway and New York State Thruway were created in the 1960s. Numerous residents who hike the gorge from Artpark have said that there are still apple trees near the base of the Lewiston-Queenston Bridge. Note the perspective of the artist Grüner from above the treetops in the lower right corner. Might it have been painted from the Chasm Tower?
The second painting loaned by Hutt is a rare oil example by Captain James Van Cleve, which dovetails nicely with the Richardt painting, as its northward view essentially picks up where Richardt’s leaves off. It was painted from a vantage point at the top of Lewiston Escarpment, about where the current Niagara Falls Country Club stands. Van Cleve (1808-1888) was a prominent resident of Lewiston and steamboat captain of several vessels on Lake Ontario. He lived with his wife, Harriet Barton (daughter of Samuel Barton), and daughter Sophia across from the 1815 Barton House on Third Street. Their home, known as the Fairbanks Mansion, was named for its original owner and Lewiston businessman Joshua Fairbanks, Harriet’s maternal grandfather.
Several existing buildings and features can be seen in the painting, the most prominent of which is the First Presbyterian Church, built in 1830. Hetzel Colt, whose orchard and farm are visible in the Grüner painting, was a ruling elder of the church for 42 years and his tall obelisk headstone can be seen prominently in the village churchyard to the right of the church. The Frontier House on Center Street, built in 1824, is also clearly visible, as is the Barton House and the 1834 Scovell mansion, “Oak Hill,” aka the Starkweather Mansion, that stood in the woods at Artpark until it burned down in 1964. Two tall ships can be seen docked at the Lewiston sand docks, and the 1835 church that houses the Lewiston Historical Association, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, echoes the steeple of the First Presbyterian Church.
Van Cleve began his 51-year career on the lake as a clerk on the Ontario—the first steamship to sail on the lake that shares its name. He was also a skilled artist. He created drawings of local sites in Lewiston, some being published in his Hand-Book for Travelers to Niagara Falls, Montreal and Quebec, and through Lake Champlain, an 1852 guide that he penned for the Ontario and St. Lawrence Steamboat Company. After his retirement, highlights of his sailing career were illustrated in his 1877 manuscript, Reminiscences of Early Steamboats, Propellers and Sailing Vessels on Lake Ontario and River St. Lawrence. His drawings and watercolors can be seen in many collections, notably the H. Lee White Maritime Museum in Oswego, the Buffalo History Museum and The William L. Clements Library at the University of Michigan. But there are very few oil paintings by Van Cleve that exist today—one example can be seen in the collection of the New-York Historical Society.
In addition to bringing together these Niagara River views, the new relationship with collector Peter Barton Hutt has resulted in his donating a noteworthy painting by American artist John Symes (1817-1888),titled Maid of the Mist II, which will be featured in an upcoming exhibition, Daredevils of Niagara Falls: The Spectacle of Triumph and Tragedy, beginning in May 2024. This important donation underscores Hutt's commitment to enhancing the CAM’s collection and to sharing multiple perspectives on the region's incredible visual history. Thus, this collaboration not only enhanced the narrative of the Niagara region, it has also highlighted the importance of stewardship and art conservation that ensures that maps, prints and important historic paintings can be enjoyed by future generations.
Niagara University, by Ferdinand Richardt. Oil on canvas, 1873.
Credit: Collection of the Castellani Art Museum of Niagara University, gift of the Diocese of Buffalo. The conservation of this painting was made possible by the NYSCA/GHHN Conservation Treatment Grant Program administered by Greater Hudson Heritage Network with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts.
About the Author
Mary Helen Miskuly is the registrar at the Castellani Museum of Niagara University and guest curator of Northward: Niagara River Views. She grew up between Niagara Falls and Lewiston. For more on the Castellani Art Museum’s exhibitions and programs, visit www.castellaniartmuseum.org.
