View of the Stone Walls

Description

Beyond Citadel Rock on the afternoon of August 6, Maximilian reported, "We came to a most remarkable place. The strata of sandstone ... run along both banks of the river, which is rather narrow. ... At some distance before us, the eye fell on an apparently narrow gate, the white walls of the two banks approaching so near to each other, that the river seemed to be very contracted between them. This illusion was heightened by the turn which the Missouri makes in this place to the southwest." A finished rendering of this view was executed by Bodmer following his return to Europe and reproduced as Tableau 41 in the atlas of aquatints. Included in the published version of the scene are representations of bighorn sheep, found in increasing numbers along the Missouri bluffs at this point.