United States Military Academy at West Point, Looking North

The painting is held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where it belongs to The American Wing’s landscape collection. It is recorded as a watercolor on ivory created in 1828 and measures 2.3 cm by 3.8 cm. The work is attributed to George Catlin and is listed in the museum’s inventory, though a specific accession number is not given in the available documentation. Exhibition history is not detailed in the sources consulted.

George Catlin, an American artist, created United States Military Academy at West Point, Looking North around 1828. This watercolor on ivory captures a detailed view of the military academy's landscape, including its distinctive buildings, a flagpole, and an obelisk. The miniature painting reflects an early phase of Catlin's career, before he became widely recognized for his extensive documentation of Native American life in the American West.

Before dedicating himself to documenting the indigenous cultures of the American West, George Catlin's early artistic endeavors included producing detailed topographical engravings, such as those depicting sites along the Erie Canal. This West Point view, with its precise rendering of a specific location, reflects that earlier focus on landscape and architectural detail, preceding his extensive travels and influential visual and written records of Plains Indian life.