The location of the picturesque alpine configuration portrayed in Albert Bierstadt's cabinet painting titled Mountain Scene has eluded identity. A European site has been suggested; perhaps the Swiss or Italian lake regions long familiar to the artist, beginning with his early period of study abroad. The painting’s vertical format cleverly reinforces the impression of vastness and grandeur in this snapshot slice of a mountain lake ringed by very high peaks whose looming reflections darken the distant water surface. Snow fields glitter at their summits over which rise even higher towers of cumulus clouds. The descent of distant snow-fed cascades gleam from across the expanse of water. A shallow foreground is created by the rocky outcrop to which clings a deciduous tree and a conifer, indicating proximity to the timberline nearby; the higher elevations without trees. A solitary boatman tends his craft drawn up on the narrow shore, while, tiny in the distance, a couple row by on the broad expanse of the lake.

—Linda S. Ferber, excerpt from "Small but Sublime: Albert Bierstadt Cabinet Paintings and Oil Studies," 2024