Platte River, Nebraska (detail) by Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902) The Mallets had given the river its French name because it was wide and shallow; Parkman referred to it as 'a thin sheet of water'. Albert Bierstadt (January 7, 1830 - February 18, 1902) was a German-American painter best known for his large, detailed landscapes of the American West. In obtaining the subject matter for these works, Bierstadt joined several journeys of the Westward Expansion. Though not the first artist to record these sites, Bierstadt was the foremost painter of these scenes for the remainder of the 19th century. ?006 TopFoto