Howdell, Captain Thomas (after) | Two views of New York engraved for the "Scenographia Americana"

Howdell, Captain Thomas (after)

A South East View of the City of New York, in North America… [with:] A South West View of the City of New York, in North America… London: printed for John Bowles, Robert Sayer, Thos. Jefferys, Carington Bowles and Henry Parker, [ca. 1768]

Two engraved views, matted, glazed, and framed (sheet size: 490 x 664 mm each).

The renowned Howdell-Canot South East and South West views of New York.

Published in the Scenographia Americana, the earliest substantial series of large-format engraved views of the American colonies, issued in the years following the French and Indian War. Howdell, an officer of the Royal Artillery stationed in New York in 1763, produced the original drawings on which these plates are based. They were then engraved by Canot.

The South East view shows a broad prospect of lower Manhattan with identifiable landmarks including St George’s Church, King’s College, Trinity Church, the Dutch and French churches, City Hall, the Presbyterian Church on Wall Street, and the palisades erected in 1745.

The South West view, taken from Mount Pitt, includes the Rutgers house (built 1754–55) and looks across the harbor toward the city skyline, with Trinity Church and the New (Middle) Dutch Church prominent.

The dating of this issue, with the added imprint, is placed between the mid-1760s and 1774, after Carington Bowles assumed the business in St Paul’s Churchyard but before Sayer’s partnership with Bennett.

REFERENCES

Deak 115–116; Stokes, Iconography of Manhattan Island, I, pp. 279–281, 295–296 (plates 37–38)