This serene view of Virginia's Natural Bridge by Jacob Caleb Ward is an important early record of the Southern landmark Thomas Jefferson described as “one of the sublimest curiosities in nature.” Only recently discovered and extensively researched, the painting is one of a pair of panels the artist created in 1835. The companion piece, Natural Bridge, Virginia, presents a similar—though closer—perspective of the bridge and is in the collection of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri.

Seen from a distance of several hundred yards, Ward’s bucolic scene reflects his romantic sensibility. The setting is tranquil, framed by trees and foliage, and crowned by blue sky; the valley and river below the bridge are barely visible behind the wooded grove. The arch itself is presented as a middle focal point, backed by a distant mountain ridge. Like its sister panel, the work is marked by Ward’s distinctive brushwork.

Born in Bloomfield, New Jersey, Jacob Caleb Ward was the son of painter Caleb Ward and brother to artist Charles V. Ward. Though little is known of his formal training, he first exhibited at the National Academy of Design in 1820; his work would be shown there periodically over the course of his career. In the decades that followed, Ward worked as an illustrator, daguerreotypist, and landscape painter, traveling frequently throughout the Americas in search of subject matter for his brush. He was in Virginia in 1835 and journeyed westward the following year. It was on that trip that he recorded scenes of the Mississippi River and executed portraits of Native Americans. From 1845-48, Ward was in South America, sketching scenes for future easel compositions and assisting with his brother’s burgeoning daguerreotype studio in Chile.

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