Karl Bodmer — A Seminal Map Charting Prince Maximilian of Wied’s and Karl Bodmer’s Groundbreaking Expedition to America

A Seminal Map Charting Prince Maximilian of Wied’s and Karl Bodmer’s Groundbreaking Expedition to America

Published:  London,  1839
Medium:  Copperplate engraving
Dimensions:  Paper size: 17 1/2 x 35 1/2 inches; framed size: 27 1/8 x 45 1/4 inches

“Carte itineraire de Prince Maximilian de Wied dans l'interieur de l'Amerique Septentrionale de Boston a Missouri superieur &c. en 1832, 33 et 34. Reise Charte des Prinzen Maximilian zu Wied ... Map to illustrate the
route of Prince Maximilian of Wied in the interior of North America from
Boston to the Upper Missouri &c. in 1832, 33, & 34 ...” from Karl Bodmer’s
Travels in the Interior of North America

This spectacular map, charting one of the greatest nineteenth-century
journeys of American discovery, documents the monumental expedition
undertaken by Prince Maximilian of Wied and his trusted illustrator Karl
Bodmer. Originally thought to be drawn by Bodmer, current research suggests
that the cartographer was Lt. Col. William Thorn who used Tanner's Map of
the United States of America, 1837 edition, as a source.

Karl Bodmer was a little-known Swiss painter when he was chosen by Prince
Maximilian of Prussia to accompany his voyage to America, in order to
document in pictorial terms the expedition. With the rest of Maximilian’s
company, the two traveled among the Plains Indians from 1832 to 1834, a time
when the Plains and the Rockies were still virtually unknown. They arrived
in the West before acculturation had begun to change the lives of the
Indians, and Bodmer, who was a protegé of the great naturalist von Humbolt,
brought a trained ethnologist’s eye to the task. The Bodmer/Maximilian
collaboration produced a record of their expedition that is incontestably
the finest early graphic study of the Plains tribes.

Maximilian and Bodmer journeyed from St. Louis up the Missouri River on the
American Fur Company steamboat “Yellowstone,” stopping at a series of forts
built by the Fur Company and meeting their first Indians at Bellevue. The
travelers continued on another steamboat, “Assiniboin,” to Fort Union, where
they met the Crees and Assiniboins.The expedition spent its first winter at
Fort Clark, where the Mandans in particular excited Bodmer’s attention,
although he was also to draw the Minatarri and Crow peoples. The explorers
continued by keelboat to Fort Mackenzie, which proved to be the westernmost
point of their journey. After living among and studying the Blackfeet for
several weeks, Maximilian decided that it was too dangerous to continue, so
the travelers returned southward, reaching St. Louis in May 1834.

After the conclusion of the journey, Bodmer spent four years in Paris
supervising the production of the aquatints made from his drawings. These
prints rank with the finest Western art in any medium, and they are the most
complete record of the Plains Indians before the epidemics of the
mid-nineteenth century had decimated their numbers, and before the white
man’s expansion had taken their lands. In contrast to other
artist-explorers of the nineteenthth century, such as George Catlin, Bodmer
was well-trained in the classic European tradition. The work that he did in
America is considered to be the high point of a distinguished career.
Perhaps more significant, the plates made from Bodmer's sketches were the
first truly accurate images of the Plains Indians to reach the general
public. Because the 1837 smallpox epidemic killed more than half the
Blackfeet and almost all the Mandans, Bodmer’s visually striking work,
together with Prince Maximilian’s detailed studies of these tribes, form the
primary accounts of what became virtually lost cultures. These spectacular
and atmospheric images are important and beautiful records of the landscape
and people of the American West as it appeared when Bodmer saw it, just
before westward expansion took hold and began the indelible transformation
of the frontier.

Thus, this map is an important record charting one of the greatest
nineteenth-century expeditions of discovery. Carl Wheat considered this to
be an “excellent map” and “a beautiful piece of engraving” as well as “a
highly creditable map.” Its author showed territories as far west as the
Rocky Mountains and charted not only the Prince’s expedition but also that
of Long and his associate Bell. Of course, the Indian lands that Prince
Maximilian was interested in are also carefully drawn, as is the Missouri
River.

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