by money enough to justify him in returning to a land where art was in its infancy, and not over-remunerative, he came back to the United States, after an absence of eighteen years, and opened a studio in New York. He found a vast improvement in the public taste and in the demand for works of art since his departure for the Old World, and, better still, found that his peculiar field, the historic, was the one most suited to the tastes of the American public.
It was his intention, in coming back to this country, to devote the time during which he supposed he would be compelled to wait for orders, to looking around him and familiarizing himself with the changes that had taken place in the Union during his absence; but he was never able to carry out this design, as he had no leisure time. His European reputation had preceded him hither, and he had scarcely opened his doors in New York before he was obliged to refuse orders, for lack of time to execute them. His hands were full from the first, and he at once took rank as the most thoroughly popular and accomplished artist in the country.
Early in 1860 he received from the Government of the United States a commission to decorate one of the marble stairways in the Capitol at Washington with a mural painting. The painting was to be executed in fresco, and he chose as his subject, "Westward the Star of Empire Takes its Way." He entered upon the undertaking with the keenest delight, and in order to make himself thoroughly acquainted with the true character of frontier scenery and life, performed what was then the long and difficult journey to the Rocky Mountains, where he made numerous sketches. Returning to the States, he sailed for Europe, and went to Munich to learn from Kaulbach the new stereochromatic process which has now superseded the fresco-painting of the middle ages. Returning to Washington, he applied himself to his task, and in a couple of years completed it.
The picture is the largest and finest mural painting in America, and adorns the magnificent stairway at the north end of the west corridor of