Thomas Cole (1801-1848) was the founder of the Hudson River school of romantic American landscape painting. He treated the idyllic as well as the formidable aspects of nature in great detail and was also noted for his allegorical subjects.

Thomas Cole was born in Bolton-le-Moors, Lancaster, England, and emigrated with his family to Philadelphia in 1818. They soon moved to Steubenville, Ohio, where Thomas, who had studied engraving briefly in England, taught art in his sister's school. He then tried to be an itinerant portrait painter. Seeking better patronage, he returned to Philadelphia in 1823 to paint landscapes and decorate Japan ware. He took drawing lessons at the Pennsylvania Academy and exhibited there for the first time in 1824.

Moving to New York the following year Cole began to receive recognition and may at this time be said to have set in motion the taste for romantic landscape--a genre which would...