1906 Richard Rummell View of Yale Univeristy, New Haven, Connecticut

A scarce 1906 signed photogravure bird's-eye view of Yale University drawn by Richard Rummell and published by F. D. Nichols of Boston. The view is centered on Osborne Hall (now demolished and replaced with Bingham Hall) with its distinctive chapel-like façade. Chapel Street runs in front of the hall and Temple Street can be seen running northward towards East Rock. Many of the extant buildings of the historic Old Campus, including Connecticut Hall (1752), are easily recognizable. Welch Hall and Lawrance Hall stand alongside College street, across from the New Haven Green which is complete with the three chapels that still stand today: United Church on the Green (Congregational, 1814), Center Church (Congregational, 1812), and Trinity Episcopal Church on the Green (1816). In the distance the heights of East Rock, with its distinctive Soldiers and Sailors Monument, is clearly visible.

Rummell was an American landscape artist known for his drawings of American universities. At the turn of the century, Littig and Company commissioned Rummell to prepare watercolors of some of the nation's most prestigious colleges. From these watercolors, copper-plates were engraved, and a limited number of engravings were issued. Most of Rummell's university views are strikingly similar in style, reveling the entire campus in panoramic splendor. The views are uniformly issued from an altitude of about 300 feet, suggesting the Rummell most likely worked form a balloon.

Of all Rummell university views, the Yale view is particular both in its format and printing style. Unlike many Rummell university views, the Yale view is rarely colored. Moreover, it is typically printed on an extremely thin tissue paper, as here, which has been laid down on card. The print can be removed from the card, but because the printing tissue is so thin, it required being remounted on either archival paper or linen. These oddities suggest that the Yale view may have been one of the first university views Rummell published. Being a Brooklynite, Yale would have been one of the nearest and easiest universities to focus on as a prototype for the series. Of all Rummell's university views, it is further noteworthy that the Yale view is one of the rarest to the market. There are at least two original states of the Rumell Yale University view, one with a title, and one, presumably the earlier, without the title, as here.

In more recent times, Arader Galleries has acquired many of the original printing plates for Rummell's college views and has issued a number of restrikes, but the original printings by Elson and Company, as here, have become extremely rare.