Oxbow River Seen from Mount Holyoke, Massachusetts Card

This design features a painting by the Anglo-American artist Thomas Cole (1801–1848), who was the founder of the Hudson River School of art. It shows a panoramic view of the Connecticut River, seen from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a thunderstorm. The painting moves from a dark wilderness with shattered tree trunks on rugged cliffs in the foreground on the left,, which is covered with violent rain clouds on the left, to a lighter and more peaceful landscape of cultivated fields on the right, which contains the tranquil sight of the meandering Connecticut River. Mount Holyoke is a traprock mountain, and it is the westernmost peak of the Holyoke Range and part of the Metacomet Ridge. Mount Holyoke is located in the Connecticut River Valley of western Massachusetts. The Connecticut River is the longest river in the New England region of the United States, flowing southward for roughly 400 miles through four states: Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont and New Hampshire. The Connecticut River rises at the US border with Quebec in Canada and discharges at Long Island Sound. The Connecticut River Valley is home to some of the northeastern United States' most productive farmland. This artwork was originally painted in 1836, and it is now housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, USA.