BIRCH, William R. (1755-1834); Thomas BIRCH (1779-1851)

Arch Street, with the Second Presbyterian Church

Pennsylvania: W. Birch, Springland Cot, near Neshaminy Bridge on the Bristol Road, 1799. Hand-coloured copper engraving on laid paper. Sheet size: 12 3/4 x 16 1/2 inches.

Plate 4 from the very rare first American colour-plate book, with views that are "uniquely valuable among American historical prints" (Martin Snyder).

This plate records Arch Street at the turn of the nineteenth century, with the Second Presbyterian Church rising above a streetscape of brick houses, shops, carriages, street lamps, and pedestrians. The composition is characteristic of Birch's urban views, combining architectural record with the incidental detail of daily life. The church, organized in 1743, stood at Third and Arch streets for much of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries; the congregation moved in 1837, and the earlier building was subsequently demolished. This plate is taken from the first and one of the most important of all American color plate books, the first book to be entirely produced and published in the United States. William Russell Birch, who conceived this splendid celebration of the city of Philadelphia, then the largest city in the United States, was a native of England. When he arrived in America in 1794, he brought with him a strong academic training in art which he used to found an engraving firm. Birch hoped that his carefully planned and executed portfolio would serve as an advertisement "by which an idea of the improvements of the country could be conveyed to Europe, to promote and encourage settlers to the establishment of trade and commerce."

Martin P. Snyder, "William Birch: His Philadelphia Views," in Pennsylvania Magazine of History, Vol. 73, No. 3, July 1949 (Snyder 4a).

Item #42946

Price: $2,500.00