Unusual Formations on the Upper Missouri

Description

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 0). Before them on shore, a rough prairie extended."

Original German Title

None

Medium

watercolor on paper

Dimensions

12 1/4 x 7 3/4

Call No.

JAM.1986.49.186

Approximate Date of Creation

25th July 1833

Labels

landscape