{
"data": {
"id": 117901,
"accession_number": "1938.56",
"share_license_status": "CC0",
"tombstone": "Smelting Works at Denver, 1892. Thomas Moran (American, born England, 1837\u20131926). Watercolor and gouache; sheet: 24 x 31.8 cm (9 7/16 x 12 1/2 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Bequest of Mrs. Henry A. Everett for the Dorothy Burnham Everett Memorial Collection, 1938.56",
"current_location": null,
"title": "Smelting Works at Denver",
"creation_date": "1892",
"creation_date_earliest": 1892,
"creation_date_latest": 1892,
"artists_tags": [
"male"
],
"culture": [
"America"
],
"technique": "watercolor and gouache",
"support_materials": [
{
"description": "light brown wove paper",
"watermarks": []
}
],
"department": "Drawings",
"collection": "DR - American 19th Century",
"type": "Drawing",
"measurements": "Sheet: 24 x 31.8 cm (9 7/16 x 12 1/2 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"sheet": {
"height": 0.24,
"height_inch": 9,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.4375,
"width": 0.318,
"width_inch": 12,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.5
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": null,
"inscriptions": [
{
"inscription": "signed, lower left, in graphite: [artist's monogram: TM] Moran; signed, lower right, in graphite: smelting works at Denver / T. Moran: June 12th 1892\r\n",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": null
}
],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 304428,
"title": "The Most Remarkable Scenery: Thomas Moran's Watercolors of the American West",
"description": "The Most Remarkable Scenery: Thomas Moran's Watercolors of the American West. Amon Carter Museum (organizer) (May 23-July 13, 1980); The Cleveland Museum of Art (August 5-October 5, 1980); Yale University Art Gallery (October 23, 1980-January 4, 1981).",
"opening_date": "1980-05-23T04:00:00"
},
{
"id": 309860,
"title": "America Draws",
"description": "America Draws. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 28, 1984-March 17, 1985).",
"opening_date": "1984-12-28T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 177119,
"title": "Thomas Moran Retrospective",
"description": "Thomas Moran Retrospective. National Gallery of Art, Landover, MD (organizer) (September 28, 1997-January 11, 1998).",
"opening_date": "1997-09-28T00:00:00"
},
{
"id": 192019,
"title": "Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art",
"description": "Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 27-October 17, 2000); The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY (May 23-August 19, 2001); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, TX (October 14, 2001-January 6, 2002).",
"opening_date": "2000-08-27T00:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": [
{
"description": "The Works of Thomas Moran, no. 82 (as The Smelters, Denver). Denver Art League, Denver, CO (December 1892). No. 82",
"opening_date": "1892-12-01T05:00:00Z"
},
{
"description": "Water Color Sketches by Thomas Moran, N. A., no. 49 (as The Smelters, Denver, Colorado). Santa Barbara Art Club, Santa Barbara, CA (June 1925).",
"opening_date": "1925-06-01T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "Memorial Exhibition: Water Color Sketches by Thomas Moran, N.A., no. 53 (as The Smelters, Denver, Col., June 12). The Milch Galleries, New York, NY (December 20, 1926 - January 8, 1927). No. 53",
"opening_date": "1926-12-20T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "Water Colors by Thomas Moran, N.A., no. 6 (as The Smelters, Denver, Colorado). The Biltmore Salon, Los Angeles, CA (January 2 - January 29, 1927). No. 6",
"opening_date": "1927-01-02T00:00:00"
}
]
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "(The Milch Galleries, New York, NY, cat no. 53.)",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1926-1927",
"sortorder": 1
},
{
"description": "(Biltmore Salon, Los Angeles, CA, January 1927, cat. no. 6, sold.)",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1927",
"sortorder": 2
},
{
"description": "Henry A. [1856-1917] and Josephine P. [1866-1938] Everett, Cleveland, OH.",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": "1927?-1938",
"sortorder": 3
},
{
"description": "Bequest of Josephine P. Everett to The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH, for the Dorothy Burnham Everett Memorial Collection.",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1938-",
"sortorder": 4
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": "Moran sketched this image while waiting for his travel arrangements to be resolved, having learned that he received a commission for a large painting of Wyoming for the World\u2019s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.",
"early_education_description": null,
"artlens_description": null,
"description": "For today's viewers of Thomas Moran\u2019s watercolor, the sight of factory smoke pouring into pristine mountain air might prophesy environmental ruin. Yet within the context of America\u2019s western expansion, the imagery of factories was more ambiguous. Some in Moran's time regarded the factories as a force of destruction, while others interpreted them as symbols of progress. Moran himself viewed Denver\u2019s budding industry with enthusiasm, writing positively to his wife about the city\u2019s growth since he first visited while part of a government survey in 1873. Two decades later, when Moran returned to Denver to paint advertisements for the Santa Fe Railroad, smelting\u2014the extraction of metal from heated rock\u2014had transformed the city into an industrial hub. Although the brooding tone of this watercolor is unlike the artist\u2019s bright, misty-eyed paintings of Edenic splendor, his depiction of the west\u2019s emerging industrial landscape reinforces the same myth of manifest destiny\u2014the belief that settler conquest of Native American lands was inevitable and justified\u2014by illustrating the land\u2019s richness in natural resources. Like the English Romantic painter J. M. W. Turner, whose style he emulated, Moran was primarily interested in the pictorial possibilities of industry. In this impressionistic study, Moran manipulates gray wash and white gouache to capture the vaporous quality of smoke and clouds as the two substances, industrial and natural, dissipate into the yellow atmosphere.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q22912358"
],
"internet_archive": [
"https://archive.org/details/clevelandart-1938.56-smelting-works-at-de"
]
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Francis, Henry Sayles, \"In Memoriam: Josephine Pettengill Everett 1866-1937,\" The Bulletin of The Cleveland Museum of Art No. 6/part II (June, 1938): 123-130.",
"page_number": "Mentioned, p. 129.",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Anderson, Nancy K., Thomas Moran, Joni Kinsey, and Anne Morand. Thomas Moran. 1997.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. no. 72, pp125-126, p. 143, p. 254, p. 400",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Cleveland Museum of Art, Diane DeGrazia, and Carter E. Foster. Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art in association with Rizzoli International Publications, New York, 2000.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: cat. no. 90, pp. 216-217; p. 296",
"url": null
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1938.56",
"images": {
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"alternate_images": [],
"creditline": "Bequest of Mrs. Henry A. Everett for the Dorothy Burnham Everett Memorial Collection",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": null,
"athena_id": 117901,
"creators": [
{
"id": 3207,
"description": "Thomas Moran (American, born England, 1837\u20131926)",
"extent": null,
"qualifier": null,
"role": "artist",
"biography": null,
"name_in_original_language": null,
"birth_year": "1837",
"death_year": "1926",
"use_in_caption": true,
"include_extent": false,
"weight": 1
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],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "1938-06-03T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1892,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "1892",
"collapse_artists": false,
"on_loan": false,
"recently_acquired": false,
"record_type": "object",
"conservation_statement": null,
"has_conservation_images": false,
"cover_accession_number": null,
"is_nazi_era_provenance": false,
"impression": null,
"alternate_titles": [],
"is_highlight": true,
"updated_at": "2026-05-29 06:06:14.232000"
}
}