This massive painting by Albert Bierstadt, entitled Looking Down Yosemite Valley measures over 5 feet tall and 8 feet wide. and is a local favorite at The Birmingham Museum of Art. A gift of the Birmingham Public Library, Bierstadt completed the oil in 1865 as a hopeful vision reuniting the country after the Civil War, and it was displayed in Chicago until the Great Fire of 1871.

Following the 1871 fire, the masterpiece vanished for nearly 60 years. It resurfaced at an auction in 1929, where a railway engineer bought it for a mere $300 and brought it to Birmingham, eventually donating it to the Birmingham Public Library. It quietly hung in a library reading room for decades until 1991, when it was permanently transferred to the Birmingham Museum of Art, where it is celebrated as a national treasure.

The Birmingham Museum of Art was founded in 1851 annd now has a diverse collection of more than 27,000 paintings, sculpture, prints, drawings, and decorative arts. ( For information about this and other museums in Birmingham, please refer to Birmingham by the Book or this list on our website.)