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

Bank of Pennsylvania, South Second Street Philadelphia

Pennsylvania: W. Birch, Springland Cot, near Neshaminy Bridge on the Bristol Road, c. 1800. Hand-coloured copper engraving on laid paper. Sheet size: 14 x 17 inches.

Plate 27 from the very rare first American colour-plate book, with views that are "uniquely valuable among American historical prints" (Martin Snyder).

The print records the second building of the Bank of Pennsylvania on South Second Street above Walnut Street. Designed by Benjamin Henry Latrobe and built between 1798 and 1801, the bank was among the earliest and most influential American statements of Greek Revival architecture. The building was still unfinished when Birch published the first edition, making this plate both an architectural document and a carefully composed projection of the new Federal city. Birch places Latrobe's severe classical façade within the commercial fabric of Philadelphia: brick buildings press in from either side, pedestrians move across the cobbled street, and the bank's white portico is set against the ordinary traffic of the city. The resulting image is more than an architectural portrait. It presents Philadelphia at the turn of the nineteenth century as a city of finance, public building, and urban sociability, shortly after its decade as the national capital and just as its civic identity was being recast through institutions, banks, markets, churches, and public works. 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 27a).

Item #42954

Price: $2,200.00