Shaw, Joshua:

$1,750 · Offered by William Reese Company

VIEW NEAR THE FALLS OF SCHUYLKILL. An important and scarce early American color print, based on a painting by Joshua Shaw, a British landscape artist who came to the United States in 1817. He conceived the idea of a published series of American views, which he executed over the next few years and which were published in Philadelphia as a series of nineteen plates entitled PICTURESQUE VIEWS OF AMERICAN SCENERY. The original edition of 1819 was issued by Moses Thomas and exists in only a few copies. The present plate is from the 1820 second issue published by Mathew Carey, also very rare.In this subtly colored scene a rider walks his horse through a wooded opening toward a valley. The Schuylkill Falls are shown in the distance, and a thickly wooded forest lies beyond. The valley is illuminated by sunlight pouring through a break in the cloudy sky.Complete sets of PICTURESQUE VIEWS... have appeared on the market only twice in the past fifty years and have brought in the neighborhood of $200,000 each time. Individual plates are somewhat less rare, but still very scarce on the market. A wonderful view of a verdant Pennsylvania.

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