Among the Sierra Nevada, California
Artist: Albert Bierstadt
A docent-led visit to Albert Bierstadt's 1868 oil painting Among the Sierra Nevada, California, a vast western landscape made in Rome from earlier travels and now at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The article follows the depicted scene, identifies its elk, waterfowl and hidden trout, and explains what the European exhibition tour and the painting's later life as a glued interior wall reveal about its meaning.