Bodmer's dramatic representations of the forested banks of the Fox and Wabash rivers reveal a love of nature that increasingly characterized his later career as a landscape painter in Europe. According to Maximilian, the artist did not often complete such scenes in a single sitting, but usually returned several times to a selected site. The results thus obtained more nearly resemble studio works than the hasty sketches made while traveling the wilderness, roads, or the river.

During the months of November and December, while Maximilian recovered at New Harmony, Bodmer and Dreidoppel went almost daily to explore along the Fox and Wabash rivers in search of zoological specimens. According to an entry in his journal on December 6, Maximilian himself accompanied Bodmer on an excursion by boat to Fox Island at the mouth of the Fox River. On that day, Mr. Bodmer made a drawing from an interesting landscape, the estuary of the Fox River into the Wabash.This rendering of the scene was reproduced as Tableau 5 in the atlas of aquatints published in Europe in 1839-43.

The travelers arrived at Mount Vernon, Indiana, at twilight on October 18. The next morning Maximilian hired a wagon for the transportation of luggage and set out for the village of New Harmony, located some fifteen miles north. Dreidoppel accompanied the Prince while Bodmer and a recent acquaintance from the boat started out for New Harmony on foot. During the weeks that followed, Bodmer made numerous studies in and around New Harmony, including this unfinished view of the settlement as seen from a distance.