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Optical View of New York City Manhattan Harbor Hand-Colored Augsburg, ca.1775
£335
$445 · €395
Original print, not a reproduction.
Ships worldwide from the Netherlands, flat, insured and tracked. 14-day returns.
- Date
- 1775
- Sheet size
- 13.8 × 18.1 in (35 × 46 cm)
- Condition
- Fair. Repaired: Some marginal loss with professional repair, primarily at the edges. Light spotting and surface dirt consistent with age. The engraved image remains strong and clear, with visible plate mark. Overall condition is fair for an 18th-century vue d’optique.
- Collection
- Harbours & ports
- Era
- 1700 to 1789, Age of discovery
- Stock no.
- f_47963282
New York seen from the water, an original hand-colored engraving in the form of a vue d'optique, published at Augsburg by Balthasar Friedrich Leizelt around 1775. The upper margin is lettered "Collection des Prospects" at the left and, in reversed letters for use with a mirror viewer, "Vue de la Nouvelle Yorck" across the top. Below the image the title appears in German and French as "Neu Yorck" and "La nouvelle Yorck".
In the foreground, rowing boats packed with figures in red, blue and green coats cross the green water, while a flagged boat with oarsmen runs along the right. At the left a large ship hull stands on the stocks beside a tall, pink-walled building and a yellow shed, with masts and pennants rising behind them. The far shore carries the town, with a church spire and trees under a pale sky.
The two lines of text beneath the picture say that New York is a city in North America on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson, begun by the Dutch in 1615 as New Amsterdam, and taken by the English in 1666, who renamed it. Optical views of this kind were designed to be seen through a zograscope, and the Augsburg publishers sold them across Europe.
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