Frederic Edwin Church’s love of exploration and visual discovery fueled extensive travel to remote landscapes around the world. Over his lifetime, Church visited and painted the landscapes of the Arctic, Mexico and South America, the Caribbean, the Middle East, and Europe. Like his teacher Thomas Cole, founder of the Hudson River School, Church painted in the Romantic style with a focus on natural beauty in idealized scenes. Church’s landscape views were often expansive and majestic, tightly constructed with structure, tone and light. As Church matured, his compositions became more elaborate and often dramatic, with brilliant, colorful sunsets over the Hudson River, waterways in the Andes, and views in Jamaica. Early sketching trips in the Catskills and the White Mountains garnered Church a reputation as a traveler-artist, painting and drawing studies in nature before creating his final composition in the studio.

In 1868, as part of an extended trip to Europe and the Middle East, Church travelled to Germany to visit the homeland of Prussian/German naturalist Alexander von Humbolt. Von Humbolt explored South America in the early 1800s and had inspired Church’s two trips to the region in 1853 and 1857. Church was very interested in Von Humbolt’s scholarly writing on the continent’s natural history, retracing Von Humbolt’s steps during his own visits. Church’s paintings from this period, in particular The Heart of the Andes, from 1859, brought the artist international recognition and fame. Hoping to share his work with the man who inspired his trip, Church wrote to a friend, the travel writer Bayard Taylor, explaining that he planned to send the painting to Berlin for Von Humbolt to see. Taylor wrote to Von Humbolt, but unfortunately, the world-renowned scientist never received it as he died before the letter’s arrival in Berlin.

Church’s 1868 trip to Germany produced several paintings, including Rainbow Near Berchtesgaden and Obersee, both from 1868. While in the Bavarian Alps, Church visited two notable lakes, The Königssee and The Eibsee. He sketched and painted several views of the dramatic landscape around the lakes, including Königssee, Bavaria from 1868. Eibsee lake was the subject of this later large-scale view from 1881 that, unlike the earlier compositions, depicts a more monumental view with dramatic rock walls that frame the scene. This painting was a gift from the artist to William H. Osborn, Church’s friend and patron.