Albert Bierstadt (American, 1830-1902)

H.T. Tuckerman cites the present work as the best of Bierstadt's early career, writing, "The work which gives the highest promise of those which Bierstadt executed at this period, is one called 'The Old Mill'--which he painted during his first summer, while on a pedestrian tour in Westphalia [Germany]. It is full of homely truth and rural beauty, and has a rare local fidelity and freshness, and a genial simplicity which reminds one of the most naive and candid aspects of life and nature in the Old World." (Book of the Artists: American Artist Life, New York, 1867, p. 388)