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The crowd of settlers depicted are standing on a rocky outcrop just east of the Rocky Mountains. At the right side of the painting, cattle graze in a tranquil field while men and oxen wrestle a wagon. In the center of the painting, a frontiersman is perched above the trail with a mother, her daughter, and infant in his arms. The family perches and prays. At the peak of the outcrop and the artwork, two men raise the Stars and Stripes. The bottom of the painting contains a predella in the Italian Renaissance tradition, in which the San Francisco Bay is depicted in a lozenge form. 

Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way (mural study, U.S. Capitol) Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze. German-American. 1816-1868

Anuradha Vikram