Nauvoo Temple
J. R. Smith
- Medium
1849
Engraving
Graham's Magazine
This 1849 engraving illustrates the interest in the temple just before it burned. It also shows how the temple had become inextricably linked to the Latter–day Saints, even after they had journeyed over thirteen hundred miles away to their new homes in the mountain valleys of the West. Smith has taken the artistic license to depict the stone baptismal font on the backs of oxen outside the building so that this unique and dramatic visual element could be seen. The font was actually in the temple basement. The original drawing was made for Smith’s 1848 panorama.