Washington Allston, United States, 1779-1843

Jason Returning to Demand His Father's Kingdom,
1807-1808

Washington Allston is a seminal figure in the development of American art after the American Revolution. Although he favored neoclassicism while studying art abroad after his graduation from Harvard, he abandoned such influences upon returning to the United States. America's first Romantic artist, he explored a broad range of subject matter, from landscape to portraiture. The subject matter of the museum’s painting derives from Allston's knowledge of classical sources, as well as a series of designs on the same subject made by Jakob Asmus Carstens. The heroic-size composition, which is geometrically ordered around a central statue, remains incomplete. As the principal figure of Jason was never executed, it is the figure of Jason's uncle, Pelias, that dominates the composition.

Charles Bird King, United States, 1785-1862

Portrait of Julcee Mathla, A Seminole Chief, 1826

Although Charles Bird King never visited a Native American village, he painted more portraits from life of North American Indians than almost any other artist of his time. Living and working in Washington, DC, he was able to capture the likeness of members of the various delegations of tribes who visited the Capitol during a period of government negotiation of Native American lands and rights. While he was never renowned for great technical achievement, King received critical attention for faithfully recording physical features and tribal costumes. His skill as a sensitive portraitist is evident in this dignified and fascinating portrait of the Seminole chief Julcee Mathla. Although a large number of King's original paintings were destroyed in an 1865 fire that ravaged the Smithsonian Institution's art collection, many survive in his own replicas as well as through painted copies and lithographs made by other artists after King's originals.

Rembrandt Peale, United States, 1778-1860

General View of Niagara Falls, ca. 1831

Painted during the Romantic period of American art, which saw an increased interest in native landscape and scenery, Peale’s General View of Niagara Falls is one of five views painted in the autumn of 1831. By this time, the Falls had become a major tourist attraction and a popular subject for artists. Peale, always ambitious, was well aware of the importance of Niagara Falls as a symbol of the country’s majesty, advanced through contemporary literature and engravings. He clearly hoped to capitalize on the popularity of the Falls; however, not one of the five paintings was ever sold. Following the Niagara studies, Peale all but abandoned landscape as a genre, concentrating on portraiture, for which he achieved his greatest fame. The oldest son in a family of painters, Peale remains a seminal figure in the development of a fresh nineteenth-century American aesthetic.

Albert Bierstadt, United States, 1830-1902

Yosemite Valley, California, ca. 1863

German-born Albert Bierstadt was raised in New Bedford, Massachusetts. In his early twenties he went to study art in his native Düsseldorf. In 1856 he left Düsseldorf and traveled through the Swiss Alps. It is in his paintings of the Alps that Bierstadt first captured the sublime grandeur of mountains. He returned to the United States, where he pursued an even more imposing scale in his Western vistas. His enterprising method of exhibiting in which viewers were charged twenty-five cents to see the work astounded the public. Bierstadt’s Western landscapes of pristine and untouched nature fascinated his audience for the best part of the 1860s. This work, probably a preliminary study for one of his monumental canvases, was executed on Bierstadt’s second trip to the American West. The study was likely one of many quick oil sketches made for the artist’s private use. Bierstadt used such sketches to gather information about the angle of a scene or specific details about plants and rocks.