Sunrise on the Matterhorn by Albert Bierstadt - after 1875 - 148.6 x 108.3 cm Metropolitan Museum of Art Sunrise on the Matterhorn by Albert Bierstadt - after 1875 - 148.6 x 108.3 cm Metropolitan Museum of Art

Sunrise on the Matterhorn

Oil on canvas • 148.6 x 108.3 cm
  • Albert Bierstadt - January 7, 1830 - February 18, 1902 Albert Bierstadt after 1875

On this day in 1830, Albert Bierstadt, a German American painter best known for his lavish, sweeping landscapes of the American West, was born. He joined several journeys of the Westward Expansion to paint the scenes. He was not the first artist to record the sites, but he was the foremost painter of them for the remainder of the 19th century. By looking at today's painting we can clearly understand why!

In the summer of 1856, during a four-year study period in Europe, Bierstadt joined a group of American colleagues on a sketching expedition. Captivated by the Swiss landscape, he created a collection of oil studies and pencil sketches during the trip, which later inspired several large canvases of the region's mountain scenery upon his return to New Bedford, Massachusetts. Between 1867 and 1897, he returned to Switzerland multiple times to continue sketching. In this dramatic depiction of the Matterhorn, Bierstadt portrays the cloud-shrouded peak in the distance, contrasted strikingly with a rugged, rocky foreground. The mountain’s vertical grandeur is further emphasized by the towering pines positioned in the lower left of the composition.

P.S. Are you a mountain lover? Take a look at the magnificent mountain landscapes by Ferdinand Hodler! Aren't they majestic? 

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