Panoramic View of New York Taken from the North River

Panoramic View of New York Taken from the North River

Robert Havell Jr.

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This beautiful aquatint was issued in 1844 as a companion piece to "Panoramic View of New York Taken from the East River." When he arrived in America in 1839, Robert Havell was celebrated for engravings he had produced with his father for John James Audubon's famous "The Birds of America." Living in New York, Havell continued to produce high-quality prints and also established himself as a Hudson River school painter. The huge steamship seen here at left, the British Queen, was the first transatlantic steamboat, and arrived in New York for the first time in July 1839.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Panoramic View of New York Taken from the North RiverPanoramic View of New York Taken from the North RiverPanoramic View of New York Taken from the North RiverPanoramic View of New York Taken from the North RiverPanoramic View of New York Taken from the North River

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.