A cobbled path climbs between crags to a wooden cross

A cobbled path climbs between two limestone crags and levels out at the top of the rise, where a plain wooden cross stands alone against the sky. The rock on either side is pale and broken, with grass and moss growing out of the crevices and a low drystone edge running along the left of the path. To the right the ground falls away and a golden plain opens out far below, with hills along the horizon and a bank of white cloud above them. The light is clear and high, and the shadows are short.

Albert Bierstadt (1830–1902) was the grandest landscape painter of the American West. Born in Solingen and raised in New Bedford, Massachusetts, he trained at the Düsseldorf academy before joining Frederick W. Lander's overland survey to the Rocky Mountains in 1859 — the first of the western journeys that gave him his subject. From the sketches he brought back he built enormous exhibition canvases such as The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak (1863) and Among the Sierra Nevada, California (1868), in which shafts of light break over peaks and mirrored lakes on a scale that drew paying crowds. His paintings are held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Gallery of Art.

Printed as a museum-grade giclée on Hahnemühle fine art paper using 12-ink archival pigment printing. Available handframed in FSC-certified wood with optional float glass, or unframed. Ships worldwide with free delivery to 30+ countries.