Brandywine Museum of Art announces global museum debut of a rediscovered masterpiece painted over 150 years ago
On view October 4, 2025–May 31, 2026
Chadds Ford, PA, October 6, 2025 — The Brandywine Museum of Art is excited to present the world-wide museum debut of a rediscovered masterpiece not seen in the United States since it was painted over 150 years ago. The painting, Autumn in the Ramapo Valley, Erie Railway, is a monumental masterwork by Jasper Francis Cropsey (1823–1900), one of the luminaries of the Hudson River School of artists. Previously held in British private collections since 1873, this painting was recently acquired by the J. Jeffrey and Ann Marie Fox Foundation for American Art. The chance to share this important artwork with the American public for the first time in 150 years inspired Brandywine’s special exhibition, Cropsey, Wyeth, and the American Landscape Tradition, now on view through May 31, 2026. Following the painting’s global museum debut at the Brandywine, it will travel nationally to venues across the United States through 2028.
Autumn in the Ramapo Valley, Erie Railway was originally commissioned by James McHenry, an Irish-born transatlantic businessman who invested in a number of American railroads, to commemorate his victory in a battle to control the Erie Railway Company. Up until now, this painting has been hidden away in McHenry’s and other British private collections since being shipped to England in the fall of 1873.
“We searched for a larger scale masterpiece by Cropsey for over 12 years and had to act decisively to acquire this painting with our initial decision based on a condition report and descriptions of the painting from period newspapers,” said Jeff and Ann Marie Fox. “It is an honor that curators from the Brandywine and other museums concur that it is an extraordinary painting with an equally fascinating story whose return to the United States is being celebrated during the country’s 250th birthday.” Their Foundation collection includes exceptional examples of works by significant American artists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, ranging from Thomas Cole to Georgia O’Keeffe.
The seven-foot-wide painting is the centerpiece of the Brandywine’s exhibition, Cropsey, Wyeth, and the American Landscape Tradition—a focused appraisal of the complex art of American landscape painting through the varied holdings of the Brandywine Museum of Art and the Wyeth Foundation for American Art collections. “Autumn in the Ramapo Valley, Erie Railway is a revelation to historians of American art: a survivor of a moment in which art and industry were entangled in fascinating ways and artists like Cropsey, Albert Bierstadt, and Frederic Church were in competition for new fortunes being spent on imposing paintings of the sources of their wealth,” said Brandywine’s William L. Coleman, Ph.D., the exhibition’s curator and Director of the Wyeth Study Center at the Museum, with a scholarly background in the Hudson River School. “We are thrilled that this painting by an American artist of a quintessentially American landscape finally finds its rightful place on an American museum’s wall for the first time in the painting’s history.”
Autumn in the Ramapo Valley, Erie Railway—an example of the “great picture” tradition—is the work of a mature artist tackling sublime, autumnal wilderness in dialogue with the booming railroad business, a frequent subject. Commissioned by a British railroad investor with controlling interests in the railway depicted, the painting naturalizes infrastructure and celebrates the feats of engineering that allowed it to cross such rugged terrain. It also illustrates the extent to which international markets existed for American art, even at this early date. The work received significant attention from American newspapers at the time Cropsey was painting it before it receded from view into private hands for the intervening 150 years.
This exceptional artwork clarifies the sheer ambition, energy, and expense that were devoted to depicting the natural world in the nineteenth-century United States, a phenomenon in which the Brandywine’s collection is also rich. The fact that its subject matter is a valley on the New Jersey-New York border makes it all the more relevant for dialogue with depictions of similar regional subjects in the Brandywine’s collection. In addition to Cropsey, landscapes by artists including Alfred Thompson Bricher, Albert Bierstadt, William Trost Richards, John Frederick Kensett, Mary Blood Mellen, and Martin Johnson Heade, among others, are included in the exhibition.
The exhibition also continues the story of the landscape tradition with the artists that followed Cropsey. Through key works in the Brandywine and Wyeth Foundation of American Art collections, a clear line of descent traces the further development of American landscape art, via Winslow Homer, George Bellows, and N.C. Wyeth, to an especially rich flowering in the works of Andrew Wyeth. Archival evidence demonstrates the depth of his engagement with the history of landscape art, including specific lessons in composition, allegory, and the aesthetic potential of industry that Andrew Wyeth learned from the Hudson River School. Through a variety of works in watercolor and tempera, many of which have never been exhibited before, the story of the rich American landscape tradition continues and intriguing commonalities between the artists of the Hudson River School and Wyeth emerge.
After its debut presentation at the Brandywine, Cropsey’s Autumn in the Ramapo Valley, Erie Railway will make a national tour into 2028, with presentations at the following institutions: Dixon Gallery & Gardens, Memphis, TN, from September 6, 2026–January 10, 2027; Speed Art Museum, Louisville, KY, from February 2027–August 2027; Rockwell Museum, Corning, NY, from September 2027–February 2028; Georgia Museum of Art, Athens, GA, from March–June 2028; and Newington-Cropsey Foundation, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY, beginning July 2028.
About the Brandywine Museum of Art:
The Brandywine Museum of Art features an outstanding collection of American art housed in a 19th-century Mill building with a dramatic steel and glass addition overlooking the banks of the Brandywine Creek. The Museum is located on Route 1 in Chadds Ford, PA. Current admission rates and hours of operation can be found at www.brandywine.org/hours. Guided tours of the Andrew Wyeth Studio, N. C. Wyeth House & Studio and the Kuerner Farm—all National Historic Landmarks—are available seasonally (for an additional fee); advance reservations are recommended. For more information, call 610.388.2700 or visit brandywine.org/museum. The Museum is one of the two programs of the Brandywine Conservancy & Museum of Art.
About the Brandywine Conservancy & Museum of Art:
The Brandywine Conservancy & Museum of Art preserves and promotes the natural and cultural connections between the area’s beautiful landscape, historic sites and important artists. The Conservancy protects the lands and waters throughout the Brandywine Valley and other priority conservation areas, developing sustainable approaches to emerging needs and assuring preservation of majestic open spaces and protection of natural resources for generations to come. The Museum of Art presents and collects historic and contemporary works of American art, engaging and exciting visitors of all ages through an array of exhibitions and programs. The Brandywine unites the inspiring experiences of art and nature, enhancing the quality of life in its community and among its diverse audiences.
# # #