Landscape with Teepee and Totem (from Sketchbook X)

Art Historical Context

William Trost Richards, a figure in the Hudson River School of American landscape painting, created this intimate graphite sketch, *Landscape with Teepee Totem (from Sketchbook X)*, 1885. Measuring just 5 x 7½ inches, the drawing on off-white wove paper a serene Western vista featuring a Native American teepee and totem pole, evoking the rugged beauty of the American frontier. Richards, renowned for his meticulous realism and luminous detail, often filled sketchbooks like this one during travels, using them as studies for larger oils and watercolors. Graphite's versatility shines here, allowing Richards to render subtle textures—from the conical form of the teepee to the carved intricacies of the totem—with precise hatching and shading. This portable medium was ideal for an artist committed to direct observation of nature, reflecting the 19th-century shift toward plein air sketching among American painters. Produced amid westward expansion, the work subtly nods to cultural encounters between settlers and Indigenous peoples. Now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's American Wing, acquired in 1992, this sketch offers a window into Richards's process and the era's romantic fascination with untamed landscapes and Native motifs. A gem for visitors, it reminds us how small studies can hold vast stories.

About the Artist

William Trost Richards · 1833–1905

William Trost Richards (1833–1905) was a prominent American landscape and marine painter born in Philadelphia, where he attended Central High School before beginning his artistic training. Between 1850 and 1855, he studied part-time under the German-born Hudson River School artist Paul Weber while working as a designer and illustrator of ornamental metalwork. He exhibited his first works at the Pe...