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606       LIVING AMERICAN ARTISTS.

[[image - an etching]]
ALBERT BIERDSTADT.

soon made the friendship of Andreas Achenbach, Lessing, and Leutze, and profited by it–especially by the example and counsel of the former. His progress was rapid. In a short time his pictures began to find their way to this city, where they were exhibited and subjected to much criticism. Doubts as to their originality were freely ventilated by some, for the work already suggested a skillful handling not often attained until after very many years of patient labor.

During a four years' stay in Europe, from 1853 to 1857, Bierstadt continued to work with enthusiasm and industry at his easel, yet managed to find opportunity withal to gratify to a limited extent his love of adventure. He made a journey, on foot, through Westphalia, visited Hesse-Cassel and Switzerland, sketched among the Apennines, and crowned his wanderings by a visit to the Eternal City. in these tours he enriched his portfolio with sketches, which he afterwards used to unmistakable advantage. It was from Hesse-Cassel he brought the study from which he afterwards painted his picture of "Sunlight and Shadow," one of the most successful of his works, and that, perhaps, which first determined his rank as a painter.

He returned to New Bedford in 1857, where he took a studio and began to work, painting chiefly from the sketches and studies he had made in Europe.