The Delaware Water Gap

Description

Leaving Dreidoppel in Bethlehem to prepare and pack zoological specimens, Maximilian and Bodmer took a carriage to Mauch Chunk on August 23, stopping briefly at a settler's house beyond Bethlehem to send back for Bodmer's forgotten sketching case. In the afternoon they stopped again at a public house in the vicinity of the Delaware Gap. Maximilian noted in his journal that Bodmer made "a faithful view" of this scenic spot encompassing the steep and woody height known locally as "the Indian Ladder." Bodmer was not the first artist to represent this scene, and the Delaware Water Gap remained a favorite subject of American landscape painters throughout the first half of the nineteenth century.