Departure of Hiawatha by Albert Bierstadt, c. 1868

In this small-scale oil on paper painting, the American landscape painter Bierstadt captured a scene from Henry Longfellow's epic poem, "The Song of Hiawatha." The figure of Hiawatha in a canoe almost disappears into the reflection of the sunset on the lake. The artist presented this painting to the poet at a dinner in his honor at the Langham Hotel, London, July 9, 1868.