Click image for slideshow

In 1832 Prince Maximilian zu Wied (1782-1867), a respected German naturalist and scholar, set out on a two-year North American expedition. He took with him a young Swiss artist, Karl Bodmer (1809-1893), to produce reference drawings and illustrate the book he planned to write. His written account of the journey and the 81 prints produced from Bodmer's exquisitely detailed drawings were acknowledged then, and continue to be recognized today, as one of the most illuminating documents of the 19th-century West.

The images in Travels in the Interior of North America: The Maximilian-Bodmer Expedition are the first glimpse that most Europeans and European-Americans got of the people and the cultures west of the Mississippi River. In addition to the insight they provide into the era's Native Americans, these images give modern viewers a better understanding of 19th-century explorers' attitudes toward the new cultures they were encountering.

The 81 engravings in the exhibition were produced from the original 19th-century printing plates, which are owned by the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, Nebraska. The images were pulled on a hand-operated flatbed press and then hand colored, so as to replicate the techniques and quality of the 19th-century sets.

Curated by Marsha Gallagher, Chief Curator of the Joslyn Art Museum, Travels in the Interior of North America: The Maximilian-Bodmer Expedition is available as two separate exhibitions of 41 prints each (one image is included in both smaller exhibitions). Museums will be able to put the full set of 81 prints on view by hosting both exhibitions simultaneously. Smaller venues will have the option of hosting just one of the exhibitions.