Four Floating Icebergs, Canada
July 4 and 5, 1859
Classification
seascapes
Department
Smithsonian Collection
Museum
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Credit
Gift of Louis P. Church
Accession Number
1917-4-273-c
About this artwork
Research in Progress
Art Historical Context
Frederic Edwin Church, leading figure of the Hudson River School, the raw majesty of nature in *Four Floating Icebergs,*, sketched on July 4 and 5, 1859. This seascape emerged from Church's daring expedition to Newfoundland and Labrador that summer, where he ventured aboard a sealing ship to study colossal icebergs firsthand. Amid the perilous Arctic waters, he filled sketchbooks with precise on-site drawings, blending scientific observation with romantic awe—a hallmark of 19th-century American landscape art. Church's Hudson River School style emphasized the sublime power of the natural world...