1856 Smillie and Mallory Panoramic View of Boston from Bunker Hill

ViewFromBunkerHill-mallorysmillie-1856
$575.00
Panoramic View from Bunker Hill Monument. - Main View
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1856 Smillie and Mallory Panoramic View of Boston from Bunker Hill

ViewFromBunkerHill-mallorysmillie-1856

Boston in the 1850s.
$575.00

Title


Panoramic View from Bunker Hill Monument.
  1856 (undated)     8 x 47.25 in (20.32 x 120.015 cm)

Description


This is a c. 1856 Richard Mallory and James Smillie panorama view of Boston. Measuring some 4' long, 160 locations are numerically identified, providing the viewer with an immaculately detailed work.
A Closer Look
Overlooking Boston from atop the Bunker Hill Monument, churches, markets, bridges, railroads, mills, storehouses, and numerous other sites are numerically labeled and tagged to an index below the bottom border. Three U.S. Navy ships are labeled in the foreground (the Franklin, Ohio, and Jamestown), along with the Chelsea Ferry Boat. In the middle ground, the harbor is full of ships. In the background, the Boston Harbor Islands are numerically identified, along with a few towns.
Publication History and Census
This view was drawn by Richard P. Mallory and engraved by James Smillie and published in Drake's History of Boston. We have been unable to find any other digitized examples of the present edition. Mallory and Smillie published a separate issue edition in 1848.

CartographerS


Richard Parrot Mallory (December 10, 1813 - April 8, 1890) was an American artist, lithographer, and wood engraver. Born in Plattsburg, New York, Mallory moved to Boston at an early age where he learned the wood engraving trade from Abel Brown. Mallory lived in Boston from the 1830s through the 1860s and published artwork, wood engravings, and other pieces. While in Boston he operated Kilburn and Mallory with Samuel Smith Kilburn for many years. Mallory married Mary Ann Jourdan (1823 - 1886) in 1837. He died in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1890. More by this mapmaker...


James Smillie (November 23, 1807 - December 4, 1885) was a Scottish American artist and engraver. Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, Smillie first immigrated to Quebec, Canada, with his family in 1821 at the age of 14 and soon joined the family engraving business. He returned to England in 1827 with a desire for further training as an engraver, eventually ending up back in Edinburgh where he studied with Andrew Wilson, purportedly a mediocre engraver, with whom he studied for six months. Smillie visited New York City in 1829 and, finding a demand for his skills as an engraver, moved there in 1830. He had established himself in New York City by 1831 as an engraver of American landscape paintings, as well as engraving banknote vignettes. This reputation led him to work for the American Banknote Company. By 1847, at the age of forty, Smillie was one of the preeminent landscape engravers in the United States. In 1883, at the age of seventy-five, Smillie wrote his autobiography, entitled A Pilgrimage, which recounted his life and more than sixty year career. In 1832, Smillie married Catherine Van Valkenburg, with whom he had two sons, James David and George Henry. Both James and George later became artists. Learn More...

Condition


Average. Wear along original fold lines. Backed on archival tissue for stability. Closed diagonal tear extending through entire view in right quarter. Light foxing. Infill to left edge.