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 BARTLETT, After William Henry (1809-1854)
[View of Baltimore, Maryland]
[Circa 1840]. Oil on canvas, 18 x 24 inches. Titled in shaded red block letters lower center: 'BALTIMORE'. Bearing signature lower right: 'W H Bartlett'. Original canvas and stretcher, in excellent condition. Late 19th-century lightly gilt, beaded and decorated American frame. Provenance: Kennedy Galleries (label); Collection of Edward Eberstadt & Sons.
A beautiful and richly coloured painting, offering a romantic image of the city of Baltimore in about 1840
This view of Baltimore, Maryland, and its harbour is based on a steel-engraved print of Baltimore after William Henry Bartlett that was first published in Nathaniel Parker Willis's American Scenery; or land, lake and river illustrations of transatlantic nature (London: 1840, 2 vols.) Baltimore is painted fancifully, with a levantine look found in other American city-scapes by Bartlett (his view of Boston is very similar to this picture), a magnificent white pyramid of shimmering buildings, towers, smokestacks, and statues rising over a quiet harbor, with a few commercial and pleasure craft with sails set. The painting is close in perspective and detail to French marine artist Louis Le Breton's 1840 engraving of Baltimore harbour, which also gives the appearance of a Middle Eastern city. A slightly larger version of the present image of Baltimore is exhibited by the Maryland Historical Society.
Bartlett, London-born painter, watercolorist, draftsman, engraver, trained initially under the architect John Britton. His skill as a recorder of both views and architecture was swiftly recognised and from the early 1830s onwards he was travelling abroad almost constantly, recording everything of note and collaborating in the production of a stream of topographical steel-engraved 'view' books. These publications attest to his visits to the Balkans, the Near East and edges of the Orient and of course North America. He visited the Americas four times between 1836 and 1852, travelled extensively in Canada and America, sketching and painting the principal cities and famous scenic vistas. He is perhaps best remembered today for American Scenery and its companion Canadian Scenery (London: 1842, 2 vols.,) containing images drawn during his travels, with text by Nathaniel Parker Willis.
Benezit (Grund, 2006), Vol. 1, p.1235; Who was Who in American art? (Madison, Ct.: Soundview Press, 1999), Vol. 1, p.225.
#18549 $15,000.00  
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