Sketch for "The Last of the Buffalo"

This oil sketch is preparatory work for Bierstadt's monumental The Last of the Buffalo, his 1888 elegy for the near-extinct American bison. Bierstadt made multiple oil sketches as he worked toward the final composition, experimenting with the arrangement of hunters on horseback and the placement of the herd against the vast Western landscape. The Buffalo Bill Center of the West's sketch shows the composition in a more fluid state than the finished canvas, with the painter exploring the drama of the confrontation between Lakota hunters and their quarry against a backdrop of spectacular sky and plain.

The sketch handling is notably looser than the finished canvas, with the bison herd indicated through broad, gestural strokes of brown and ochre. The sky is particularly free, with theatrical clouds built quickly in layers of white and grey.