Antique 1891 Ernest C Rost Seneca Lake New York Landscape Etching

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Late 19th century hand colored etching titled "Seneca Lake" by Ernest C. Rost. Landscape showing a stone house on a … Read more Late 19th century hand colored etching titled "Seneca Lake" by Ernest C. Rost. Landscape showing a stone house on a small hill at the edge of a lake. Copyright 1891 by Fishel, Adler & Schwartz, New York. No frame.

Seneca Lake is located in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York, specifically within Ontario, Seneca, Yates, and Schuyler counties. It's the largest and deepest of the Finger Lakes. The lake is roughly 38 miles long and 3 miles wide at its widest point.

Ernest Christian Rost - American, 1866 - 1940 - Ernest was born January 20, 1866, at Mt. Vernon, N.Y. and was probably the son of Christan Rost (a locally known engraver) and Minna M. Rost. Nothing is known of his childhood except he was the fourth of six children in the family. By the mid-1880's E.C. Rost was exhibiting landscapes in oil at the National Academy of Design, New York City. After 1887 his oil painting stopped and by 1891 etching became his primary occupation. Today, the Library of Congress (Prints and Photographs Division) maintains 63 etchings signed 'Ernest C. Rost' or 'E. C. Rost', with dates running from 1891 to 1896. These often portray country lanes, cottages, rural scenes, sea, river and bayside settings, mostly in New York State, but several depict homes of famous statesmen and writers. With the outbreak of the Spainish-American War, Rost was sent by the U.S. War Department to Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Phillippines, and Guam as a civilian photographer of military operations and installations. Today, 21 photographs taken by E. C. Rost of these islands are held by the National Archives (Audio-Visual Division), while still another 26 photographs, all of Cuba, are held by the Library of Congress. In 1894 he sued his agents, Fishel, Adler and Schwartz Co. for the sale of his etchings as artist's proofs to which his signature had been forged. He went to the shop and bought 2 of these for $.90 each, whereas Ernest testified that they were worth $5 each. He was so angered by the lawsuit experience that he never again etched. By 1898 Rost had apparently given up etching and entered photography full-time. Still, photography was not his only occupation during this time period, for he began writing, too. Between 1899 and 1900, at least 7 articles by Rost appeared in the popular 'Leaslie's Illustrated Weekly Newspaper'.

Dimensions:
24" x 18" (Width x Height) See less