Vue De New York, Prise de Weahawk (A View of New-York, Taken from Weahawken)

Book Description

Paris: circa 1834. Aquatint printed in colours and finished by hand. Second state with the imprint "A Paris chez Hocquart aine Succr de Basset rue St. Jacques No. 64. Depose. New-York Published by Bailly Ward & Co.". 12 1/2 x 17 1/2 inches. 17 1/4 x 20 1/4 inches. One of the most beautiful aquatint views of New York. Weahawk in New Jersey (now Weehawken) offered New Yorkers a pastoral retreat and was a popular picnic area, with a ferry running from Canal Street. Burr and Hamilton fought their famous duel there, and years later the first baseball games were played at a site nearby. The view of New York from the west in Weahawk is a very commanding view with the many architecturally splendid churches, the tallest at the southern end of the Island being Trinity Church, then Saint George's Chapel, the Brick Presbyterian Church and Saint John's Chapel. On the Jersey side, Steven's Point is in the right middle ground. "The date of Garneray's rendering is determined…by the inclusion of the dome of the Old Merchants' Exchange, completed in 1827 but destroyed by fire in December 1835. It can be seen to the left of Trinity Church in the lower reaches of Manhattan...[and] because there is no trace of the elaborate tower of the Presbyterian Church in Wall Street, destroyed by fire in September of 1834 but rebuilt in 1835, it is probable that the drawing for the aquatint was made late in 1834 or early in 1835." (Deak) Garneray, the eldest son of the painter Jean-François Garneray, was one of three brothers who all made their living as artists. He studied under his father and the engraver Debucourt, but early in his life decided on a life of adventure and travel, including a period as `un authentique corsair' (Benezit). Returning to France, he settled into a more conventional artistic life, exhibiting at the Paris Salon between 1817 and 1857. Deak, Picturing America 1497-1899, # 433; Eno Collection, New York City Views, The New York Public Library, # 149; Stokes, The Iconography of Manhattan Island, Vol III, p. 614; Stokes, c.1834 E-38.

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