The Natural Bridge, Virginia, 1852

George Washington had surveyed it and the surrounding land in 1750, and left his initials carved in its stone. In 1774, Thomas Jefferson bought 157 acres of that land, including the geological formation he called "the most sublime of nature's works,"1 from King George III of England, and here built a two-room cabin for his own use as a private retreat.

Frederick Church was one of the foremost exponents of the Hudson River School of nineteenth-century American artists, who built their reputations on grand landscape paintings such as this one, his equally famous Niagara (1857) and Twilight in the Wilderness (1860), or the stupendous mountain scenes by Albert Bierstadt (1830–1902). Collectively, their works gave the world a highly romanticized impression of the Western United States.