State-House Garden, Philadelphia

by William R. Birch, Thomas Birch

$1,520 · Offered by Donald A. Heald Rare Books

Plate 23 from the very rare first American colour-plate book, with views that are uniquely valuable among American historical prints Martin Snyder . This plate shows the enclosed garden behind the Pennsylvania State House, later Independence Hall, with its high brick wall, open gateway, shaded walks, and strolling figures. Birch presents the garden as a civic and social landscape, a place where public architecture, leisure, and republican urban life meet. The composition

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