A biography on David Johnson, provided by Kennedy Galleries with the painting in 1982, notes that, “John I.H. Baur in his article on David Johnson recently published in THE AMERICAN ART JOURNAL (Vol. XII, No. 4, Autumn 1980, pages 32–65) states that Johnson worked in the 1869–1870 period in New York and New Hampshire. He favored in his compositions at that time a foreground bank, a broad surface of water, one or two figures in a boat and a mountain behind. Mr. Baur was not aware of ‘Roger’s Slide, Lake George, New York’ at the time his article was published; however, when he saw the painting at Kennedy Galleries as it came on the market in November 1981, he proclaimed it to be the finest landscape by David Johnson he had encountered.”[1]

[1] Kennedy Galleries (unpublished essay, 1982).