[New York City]: Bennett, William James [after Nicolino Calyo]:

$2,250 · Offered by William Reese Company · No longer available

VIEW OF THE GREAT FIRE IN NEW YORK, DECR. 16th & 17th 1835. AS SEEN FROM THE TOP OF THE BANK OF AMERICA CORNER OF WALL & WM. STREET [caption title]. A scarce and dramatic aquatint view of New York in the midst of the devastating fire of 1835, executed by the skilled and prolific William Bennett after an original watercolor by an eyewitness of the event. The original artist, Nicolino Calyo, was an Italian painter who emigrated from Italy in 1834, specializing in close observation of people and places. He was present at the Great Fire of 1835, and sketched day and night as the city was destroyed. He painted a number of compositions in gouache based on his sketches, and Bennett created his aquatint engravings from his images. The fire supposedly began on Merchant Street and quickly spread to Pearl Street and grew wildly out of control. Frigidly cold temperatures meant frozen pipes and fire hoses which hampered containment efforts, and it wasn't until conditions improved a few days later that the damage could be surveyed and the rubble cleared. Seven hundred houses over seventeen blocks on the south east tip of Manhattan were destroyed in the conflagration. Included in that destruction were the Merchants' Exchange (pictured left center) and the Fulton Insurance Company, the destruction of which provided a sobering reminder of the fragility of the city's seemingly unstoppable economic progress. Former Mayor Philip Hone wrote about the disaster in his journal:"How shall I record th

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