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A luminous and quietly powerful image of the American interior, based on Karl Bodmer’s field sketch made during the winter of 1832–33 at the mouth of the Fox River in Indiana, near the confluence with the Wabash. The artist was then staying at the utopian settlement of New Harmony, serving as the expedition artist for Prince Maximilian of Wied-Neuwied, whose ambitious scientific and ethnographic expedition had already taken him deep into the Missouri country and back.
This composition contrasts a rich foreground of tangled sycamore roots and an alert bald eagle with a more open vista of river, riverboat, cattle, and soft canopy beyond. The advancing edge of American settlement is evident in the cleared banks and livestock at water’s edge, yet the overall mood remains one of calm, filtered light and balance between nature and man. The floating raft with its thin trail of smoke is a quiet symbol of transformation, suggesting the passage of goods and people, as well as the changes pressing inward from the Mississippi.
Bodmer's image was engraved in aquatint by the Swiss-French master Sigismond Himely, a technically demanding method that allowed for both subtle tonal range and high detail. It appeared as Tab. V in the large folio atlas accompanying Reise in das innere Nord-America in den Jahren 1832 bis 1834, published simultaneously in Coblenz, Paris, and London between 1839 and 1841.
The Fox River plate stands among Bodmer’s most sophisticated Eastern scenes and is a rare visual record of the American Midwest in the midst of environmental and cultural transition. Unlike the romanticized or heroicized Western imagery of later decades, Bodmer’s work here reflects close observation and a European naturalist’s eye, conveying the character of a particular place with fidelity and restraint.
States
First state: Lacks English title, publisher's inscription, and date.
Second state: Has English title and publisher's inscription but lacks date.
Third state: Dated "Jany 1st 1839".
