The Hetch-Hetchy Valley, California

Painted in 1877 and held at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, this landscape by Bierstadt depicting the Hetch Hetchy Valley in California—a valley of comparable grandeur to Yosemite that was later controversially dammed—shows the artist's sustained documentation of California's spectacular mountain scenery. Hetch Hetchy was less visited than Yosemite in 1877, and Bierstadt's paintings of the valley helped bring this remote landscape to public attention, contributing to the broader debate about preservation and development of California's natural heritage.

Bierstadt brings his mature Hudson River School technique to the Hetch Hetchy landscape: luminous sky with layered atmospheric haze, the valley's waterfalls as bright vertical accents in the dark forest, and the characteristic golden light that transforms western American scenery into images of primordial divine creation.