A Western Landscape

Albert Bierstadt made six separate trips to the West from his New York studio between 1859 and 1870, producing sketches that would yield the oil paintings of the Rockies for which he is most known-as well as this pastoral view of a decidedly flatter landscape. His views provided eager Eastern audiences with visions of an idealized West, filled with magnificent vistas and inexhaustible resources Americans felt themselves destined to claim and enjoy.