 Frederic Edwin Church (American, 1826–1900) 'The Meteor,' 1860-61, oil on paper laid to canvas, 10 3/8 x 17 7/8 in. (26.6 x 43.2cm), Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, The Dorothy Clark Archibald and Thomas L. Archibald Fund & The Ella Gallup Sumner and Mary Catlin Sumner Collection Fund, 2025.3.1 | |
| Date | July 20, 1860 |
|---|---|
| Location | United States |
The 1860 Great Meteor procession occurred on July 20, 1860. It was an extremely rare meteoric phenomenon reported from locations across the United States. [1] [2]
American landscape painter Frederic Church saw and painted a spectacular string of fireball meteors across the Catskill evening sky, an extremely rare Earth-grazing meteor procession. [3] [4] The painting now belongs to the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, Connecticut, Frederic Church's birthplace. It is believed that this was the event referred to in the poem Year of Meteors, 1859-60, by Walt Whitman. [5] [6] In 2010, 150 years later, it was determined to be an Earth-grazing meteor procession. [7]
