Landscape, Steckelberg, Switzerland

William Trost Richards sketched this Alpine landscape during a European tour, capturing the dramatic geology of the Steckelberg with precise linear hatching and careful tonal gradation. A figure in the foreground establishes scale against towering rock formations and forested slopes. Richards, a leading American landscape painter of the nineteenth century, developed his compositions through such field studies, translating observed detail into finished works. The sketch demonstrates the artist's methodical approach to recording geological structure and atmospheric space—hallmarks of the Hudson River School tradition he helped define.