Oil on canvas, unsigned, lined. 18 x 26 in., 25 x 33 in. (frame). Provenance: William H. Tobey; thence by descent. Exhibited and Literature: Ruth Piwonka, Mount Merino, Views of Mount Merino, South Bay and the City of Hudson painted by Henry Ary and his Contemporaries, July 18 - Oct. 3, 1976. Note: Painter Henry Ary was born in Providence, Rhode Island, and came to live in Hudson in 1844 when he was in his thirties. He painted in and around Hudson for most of his career and lived here for the rest of his life. Ary began his career as a portrait painter in Albany. In 1833, he moved to Catskill where he met painter Thomas Cole and, inspired by the beauty of the Hudson Valley and encouraged by Cole, began painting landscape subjects. Ary taught painting at the Hudson Female Academy where Elihu Gifford, father of Sanford Gifford, was a trustee. Ary and Gifford went on sketching trips together in the Catskills, and it has been said that the older Ary was an influence on the younger artist. Ary also instructed Hudson River School artist John Bunyan Bristol. The landscape surrounding the City of Hudson in the nineteenth century offered artists interesting compositions with contrasting textures of mountains, water and flat shoreline. The view of Mount Merino from Hudson was widely painted at this time, but no artist painted this scene more than Henry Ary. Until the 1850's, Mount Merino and South Bay were known mostly for their agricultural and commercial purposes. It was Henry Ary's paintings of this site that focused attention on the natural beauty of this landscape.,