The mammoth plate from which this print was cropped was made during Watkins' first trip to Yosemite (Naef & Hult-Lewis Cat. 152). These cropped prints were likely made in the mid-1880's, when higher demand for smaller, more portable prints compelled Watkins to reinterpret his earlier images in cropped formats. The print is flush-mounted to its original album leaf; the album was comprised of Grand Tour photographs compiled by a noble Swiss family. Titled in ink mount recto in an unknown hand “Cathedral Rock / 2,660 feet”.