Minneapolis Institute of Art

The Falls of St. Anthony

Seth Eastman

Date

1848

Medium

Oil on panel

Department

Arts of the Americas

Institution

Minneapolis Institute of Art

Among all the artists who rushed to document the largely unsettled land west of the Mississippi River, Seth Eastman is the best-known interpreter of Minnesota Territory. Eastman had been trained in drawing at West Point military academy. He first came to Fort Snelling in 1829 and returned in 1841 as a commissioned officer for a seven-year stay. The Falls of St. Anthony shows the falls and adjacent riverbanks nearly untouched by the commercial development that would come with Euro-American settlement. The only hint, in the middle distance, is the first dam built above the falls (in 1848), between the east bank of the Mississippi and Nicollet Island. United States, Americas

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