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

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

VIEW OF THE RUINS AFTER THE GREAT FIRE IN NEW-YORK, DECR. 16th & 17th 1835. AS SEEN FROM EXCHANGE PLACE [caption title]. A striking aquatint view of New York in ruins after 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, including the Old Garden Street Church pictured in this print; this print is one of if not the only contemporary representation of this church, which had been built in 1807. Former Mayor Philip Hone wrote about the disaster in his journal:"How shall I record the events of last night, or how attempt to describe the most awful calamity which has ever visited these Uni

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