This painting was first known of in 1997 when it came up for auction in New Hampshire. It was listed in the New Hampshire Auction's program as, "Across the Valley." There is no other record of the name's orgin. It is not listed in RSW's Painting Diary, nor does it appear in any exhibition list and it is not written anywhere on the painting's stretcher. In the early years of the website it was the practice of the site to list such paintings in both the Unnamed Gallery as well as in the Alphabetic Gallery under it's given name. This is no longer the site's policy for two reasons; (1) it causes more confusion and at times conflicts with other similarly named paintings and (2) it makes RSW's catalogue appear larger than it is. So we have adjusted the catalogue to reflect this painting's truth, it is Unnamed and we have removed it from the Alphabetic Gallery.

This painting does in fact conflict with another painting with the same name. However, this other painting is listed in the painting diaries and has a well documented provenance. In our years of experience, and for inexplicable reasons (given this website as a valid resource), auction houses continue to either disregard RSW's given name and generically name it in their catalogues or fail to research the painting thoroughly. In fact, we have more examples of these auction houses labeling paintings incorrectly than we do otherwise. In 1997, the only comprehensive Woodward catalogue available to auction houses was the one compiled by the Deerfield Academy's American Study Group in 1970 where "Across the Valley" is listed. It would be fair to say the New Hampshire Auctions took the name from this source. While it was not uncommon for RSW to re-use a name, rarely was it done when the two paintings could potentially cross paths. (see: Tale of Two Winters for more)