HILL, John (1770-1850, engraver) & William Guy WALL (1792-1864)

The Junction of the Sacandaga and Hudson Rivers [No. 2 of the Hudson River Port Folio]

New York and Charleston: H. I. Megarey & W. B. Gilly New York & John Mill Charleston SC, [1821-22]. Aquatint, coloured by hand, by John Hill, after W.G. Wall. Printed by Rollinson. Sheet size: 24 x 17 7/16 inches.

A fine view of the junction of the Sacandaga and the Hudson from "The Hudson River Portfolio": one of the "finest collections of New York State views ever published" (Deak).

"In the summer of 1820 the Irish-born and trained landscape artist William Guy Wall (1792-after 1864) went on an extended sketching tour of the Hudson River Valley and its environs. A selection of Wall's watercolors recording sights on his tour was engraved by the master printmaker John Hill (1770-1850) in The Hudson River Portfolio, published in New York City by Henry J. Megarey between 1821 and 1825. Long considered a cornerstone in the development of American printmaking and landscape painting, its twenty topographical views cover roughly 212 miles of the 315-mile course of the Hudson River. This undertaking paved the way for a wider public appreciation of landscape in the United States. The first series of prints to make Americans aware of the beauty and sublimity of their own scenery, the seminal Portfolio helped to stimulate national pride and cultural identity. The adjacent text reads: "The Hudson river receives the water of the Sacandaga, at the village of Luzerne about fourteen miles west of Sandy-Hill, and about two hundred and twenty-four from New-York. There are some considerable rapids at this place, which are dignified by the name of the Little Falls. The shores are broken and precipitous; and the natural course of the current is impeded and distracted by the large fragments of stone. The character of the scenery is a wild, ferocious, and solitary sublimity; lofty and irregular acclivities, covered with the gloomy verdure of interminable forests and glens. The forests of Luzerne are principally of white pine. The time of day represented in the engraving is morning."

Cf. Deak 320; R.J. Koke Checklist of John Hill 76; New York Historical Society notes to an exhibition on the Hudson River School.

Item #33677

Price: $3,500.00