Mount Corcoran Jigsaw Puzzle

Oil on canvas painting by Albert Bierstadt In 1877 Albert Bierstadt displayed this enormous composite of Sierra Nevada mountain views at a New York City exhibition with the generic title Mountain Lake. The following year, inspired in part by the Corcoran Gallery of Art's well-publicized purchase of his rival Frederic Edwin Church's Niagara, Bierstadt offered the work-rechristened Mount Corcoran-to the museum and its founder, William Wilson Corcoran. Staff and board members were deeply suspicious, but Bierstadt presented them with a War Department map showing the mountain's location. Curator William MacLeod opined that a government official had manually added Corcoran's name to the document, but it was revealed that the artist had, in fact, named a specific Sierra Nevada peak for the banker (albeit after he had offered him the canvas). Undeterred by the controversy surrounding the painting's acquisition, the artist stated: "I am happy to have named one of our highest mountains after him