Neuwied Castle — Prince Maximilian and Karl Bodmer Collections

Neuwied Castle in Wied, Germany, is connected to Prince Maximilian Alexander Philipp and his Swiss painter Karl Bodmer, who traveled and explored the North American Plains from 1832-1834. Maximilian’s two-volume Travels in the Interior of North America (1839-41) is a primary source in the understanding of Mandan and Hidatsa people from the Euro-American view.

Bodmer’s extraordinary watercolors and prints of the Mandan and Hidatsa people, created just decades after Lewis and Clark’s visit, provide invaluable visual documentation of the cultures the expedition encountered at the Knife River villages.