Francis Guy is best known for views of Baltimore villas and public buildings painted on chairs made by the Finlay brothers. However, the British-born decorative painter also created independent landscapes. Here, he captured Jefferson Rock, a prominent outcropping of sedimentary stone located on a hillside at Harper’s Ferry. Guy included the prospect visible from this spot, where the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers comingle in the gap between the Maryland and Virginia heights. In 1785, Jefferson wrote in Notes on the State of Virginia that the view was “worth a voyage across the Atlantic.” The rock was named after him. Like the group of American landscapes owned and displayed by George Washington in his New Room at Mount Vernon, this early image of an American landmark indicates that the roots of the American landscape painting movement happened much earlier in the 19th century than has been traditionally understood. The frame is original to the painting.