Unusual Formations on the Upper Missouri

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Artist

Karl Bodmer

Birth and death dates

1809 - 1893

Artist Nationality

Swiss

Title

Unusual Formations on the Upper Missouri

Date

July 25, 1833

Dimensions

12 1/4 × 7 3/4 in. (31.1 × 19.7 cm)

Medium

Watercolor on paper

Institution

Joslyn Art Museum

Credit Line

Gift of the Enron Art Foundation

Accession Number

1986.49.186

Rights (i.e. copyright information)

Joslyn Art Museum

Photographer credit

Photograph © Bruce M. White, 2019

Commentary

A few miles below the Musselshell River, the keelboat passed through a landscape characterized by formations that strongly reminded Maximilian of old castles and battlements on the Rhine. Several sketches made by Bodmer at this time, identified by inscriptions as representing the region known as the Stone Walls, are otherwise described in Maximilian's journal as in an area near the so called White Castles. On July 25 the keelboat approached a chain of "strange clay hills" according to Maximilian's account. "They had incredible peaks . . . including some straight ones, like mountain castles on the Rhine (See sketches M and N).. .. At the next bend of the river lay very strange peaks again (Mr. Bodmer's sketch O). Before them on shore, a rough prairie extended."

References in Journal

July 25, 1833

Labels:

study , genre, riverscape , Missouri River , study, geological

Approximate Depicted Location:

Upper Missouri River