This gorgeously illustrated book celebrates the recent generous gift of William Trost Richards' watercolors to Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, and is concurrent with the exhibition A Mine of Beauty: Landscapes by William Trost Richards. The show is also on view at Newport Art Museum in Newport, Rhode Island in the summer and fall of 2012. Scenes ranging from muted and serene to light infused and color saturated, Richards' watercolors and oil paintings brilliantly capture the very essence of nature. Images are reproduced on a one-to-one scale, providing a lavish study of this pre-Raphaelite artist's work. Two prefaces and an essay by leading experts in the art historical field further expand on the history of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Philadelphia landscape painting in general and William Trost Richards specifically.