View of the Bay and Harbor of New York, from Gowanus Heights, Brooklyn

View of the Bay and Harbor of New York, from Gowanus Heights, Brooklyn

William Henry Bartlett

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This watercolor is related to “View from Gowanus Heights, Brooklyn,” a steel engraving by Henry Adlard for Barlett’s and N.P. willis’s “American Scenery” (1838–40), a two-volume series of prints and commentary that became the classic picturesque album of its time. Emulating the work of J. M. W. Turner, the greatest landscape illustrator of the nineteenth century, Bartlett represented New York Bay from an almost impossibly high point of view, making New York City an incident in a cosmic panorama. The view is linked conceptually to the prospect from a gentleman’s estate, suggested by the white house (actually the Delaplaine Hotel) with chimneys portrayed in the middle distance at left.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

View of the Bay and Harbor of New York, from Gowanus Heights, BrooklynView of the Bay and Harbor of New York, from Gowanus Heights, BrooklynView of the Bay and Harbor of New York, from Gowanus Heights, BrooklynView of the Bay and Harbor of New York, from Gowanus Heights, BrooklynView of the Bay and Harbor of New York, from Gowanus Heights, Brooklyn

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.