Karl Bodmer
Swiss painter and printmaker, 1809-1893
View of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
1832
Aquatint with hand coloring on wove paper
10 1/4 x 14 1/2 inches (26.035 x 36.83 centimeters)
Gift of Tom and Meredith Brokaw, 1991.
1991.021.000

In 1832 the German naturalist and ethnologist Prince Maximilian zu Weid-Neuwied embarked on a two-year expedition to study North America, hiring the Swiss artist Karl Bodmer to record the landscapes and Native American peoples they encountered on the journey. The expedition spent seven weeks in Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley, where Bodmer made the watercolor of Bethlehem that served as the basis for this aquatint. It was published in the English edition of the luxury publication Travels in the Interior of North America, 1832-1834.