The World's First National Park Through Victorian Eyes — The Illustrated London News, 17 November 1883

This extraordinary original wood engraving, drawn by Alfred W. Cooper and published as part of a celebrated multi-page spread in The Illustrated London News on 17 November 1883, belongs to one of the most ambitious and visually spectacular features the paper ever devoted to the American wilderness: seventeen woodcut engravings capturing the geological wonders of Yellowstone National Park — the world's first national park, established just eleven years earlier in 1872.

By 1883, Yellowstone was beginning to capture the European imagination in earnest. The completion of the Northern Pacific Railway that September had made the park accessible to travellers for the first time, and reports of its extraordinary landscapes — the geysers, the hot springs, the canyon, the wildlife — were filtering back to London with growing frequency. The Illustrated London News seized the moment, commissioning Cooper to produce a comprehensive visual record of the park's geological oddities and sublime scenery for a readership that had heard much of Yellowstone but seen little.

Alfred W. Cooper was a skilled and prolific illustrator whose work for The Illustrated London News spanned natural history, travel, and exploration subjects. His Yellowstone engravings — seventeen in total across the feature — are among the earliest and most detailed European visual records of the park, capturing the alien beauty of the geyser basins, the vivid colours of the hot spring terraces, and the dramatic scale of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone with the precision and wonder of a true explorer-artist.

• Publication: The Illustrated London News, London
• Date: 17 November 1883
• Artist: Alfred W. Cooper
• Subject: Geological wonders and scenery of Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
• Medium: Original wood engraving
• Size: Approximately 26 × 40 cm (11 × 16 inches)
• Scan: 350 dpi
• Condition: Original antique print — age-toning consistent with period. Any slight tears along the edges of the original print will be repaired using acid-free archival tape. No original prints will be sold where there is damage to the principal image area.

A rare and visually stunning piece for collectors of American West history, national parks history, Victorian travel illustration, or natural history art — and a dramatic, large-format addition to any interior.