The Hudson River School was an landscape that dominated American art in the mid-19th century. Not an institution of artistic training, the Hudson River School was a group of like-minded landscape painters in New York City and New England. Though their styles varied, the Hudson River School painters all sought to capture the grandeur of nature in America.

Developed and popularized in Europe between 1880 and World War I, the Art Nouveau style was characterized by undulating lines and swirling ornament. In its appreciation of pattern and complicated forms, the style was a continuation of earlier 19th-century traditions.

Frederic Edwin Church was one of the most celebrated American landscape painters of his time, and his legacy continues into the present. Church was born in Hartford, Connecticut to a wealthy family that used their connections to establish Hudson River School landscape painter Thomas Cole as Church’s mentor.

Once the largest and one of the most successful silver firms, Gorham Manufacturing Company was founded in 1831 by Jabez Gorham (1792-1869), a native of Providence, Rhode Island who completed a seven-year apprenticeship to Nehemiah Dodge. His first venture following the completion of his apprenticeship was a partnership with Christopher Burr, William Hadwen, George C. Clark, and Harvey G.

Frederic Edwin Church's distribution of a broadside, likely written by himself and Louis Legrand Noble, was a key aspect to the original displays of The Icebergs. The text is divided into seven short passages that guide viewers into the painting's scenery, pointing out the mass, motion, colors, and optical effects of the berg. For the general public, the textual guide assisted their understanding of the other-worldly terrain.

The culture area of West Mexico encompasses two major style areas, the modern state of Guerrero in the south, particularly in the middle reaches of the Balsas River, and the states of Colima, Jalisco, and Nayarit to the north. Most of the objects associated with these areas were made during the period 500 BCE to 500 CE.

- studied painting under Christian Griepenkerl at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste from 1894-1899