This sketch served as the preparatory drawing for one of Mary Nimmo Moran’s first etchings,
Bridge over the Bushkill, Easton, Pa. (14.71a), and she may have created both on the same day, preferring to sketch and etch directly from nature.¹ In Easton, July 29, 1879, the artist made several sketches on a sheet of paper: the primary drawing is of the bridge and adjacent building with some foliage, and to its right are the trees and grasses presented from a different perspective. Below the latter are two very faint drawings in which Nimmo Moran works out the curvature of the bridge’s arch.

In Bridge over the Bushkill, Easton, Pa., the focus is on the bridge, but the artist increased the height of the building and the trees. The print is the reverse of the drawing, because the composition is reversed in the printing process. This suggests Nimmo Moran etched the plate outdoors as she saw it, correcting only for the proportions of the building and trees from her original drawing. To print it, she ran the plate through the press face-to-face with the paper, which results in a mirror image.²

—Sandra Pauly, Henry Luce Foundation Curatorial Scholar for Moran Collection Research, 2021

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¹ Vittoria, “Nature and Nostalgia in the Art of Mary Nimmo Moran,” 160–61. Nimmo Moran stayed with relatives in Easton, Pennsylvania, during the summer of 1879 while her husband, the artist Thomas Moran (1837–1926), was on a field trip to the American West. While there, Nimmo Moran also created the etching Bridge over the Delaware, Easton, Pa. (14.74a).
² Vittoria, “Nature and Nostalgia in the Art of Mary Nimmo Moran,” 161–62.