New York from Governor's Island (No. 20 of The Hudson River Portfolio)
John Hill
An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art
From New York Harbor, we here look back toward Manhattan and the mouth of the Hudson. Agg's related text traces the city's history from a Dutch settlement to a center of world trade whose population was estimated at 140,000 in 1824. "Possessing advantages which are scarcely to be surpassed, in its proximity to the ocean, and its facilities of intercourse with the interior by means of that splendid system of internal navigation which has been so successfully carried into effect, its commercial character must rapidly increase; and the time may not be very remote when it will outstrip, in its wealth, population, and credit, the most extensive sea-ports of the old world. In the view which lies before us, the forest of masts, the spires, and forts, combine to impress the mind with a pretty correct idea of the present importance of the city." The print comes from the Hudson River Portfolio, a monument of American printmaking produced through the collaboration of artists, a writer, and publishers. In the summer of 1820, the Irish-born Wall toured and sketched along the Hudson, then painted a series of large watercolors. Prints of equal scale were proposed—to be issued to subscribers in sets of four—and John Rubens Smith hired to work the plates. Almost immediately, Smith was replaced by the skilled London-trained aquatint engraver John Hill, who finished the first four plates, and produced sixteen more by 1825. Over the next decade, the popularity of the Portfolio stimulated new appreciation for American landscape, and prepared the way for the Hudson River School.
Drawings and Prints
An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art
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.