INDIAN BROOK WATERFALLS, COLD SPRING New York Deer ~ 1838 Art Print Engraving

Description: THE INDIAN FALLS NEAR COLDSPRING Artist: William Henry Bartlett ____________ Engraver: H. Adland Note: the title in the table above is printed below the engraving CLICK HERE TO SEE MORE 19th CENTURY DECORATIVE LANDSCAPE & TOPOGRAPHICAL PRINTS LIKE THIS !! PRINT DATE: This lithograph was printed by George Virtue in London in 1838; it is not a modern reproduction in any way. PRINT SIZE: Overall print size is 10 1/2 inches by 7 1/2 inches including white borders, actual scene is 7 1/8 inches by 4 3/4 inches. PRINT CONDITION: Condition is excellent. Bright and clean. Blank on reverse. Paper is quality woven rag stock. SHIPPING: Buyer to pay shipping, domestic orders receives priority mail, international orders receive regular mail unless otherwise specified. Details on payment will be in an email after auction closes. THIS PRINT IS FROM THE LATE 1830s & IS NOT A MODERN REPRODUCTION IN ANY WAY! FROM THE ORIGINAL DESCRIPTION: This is a secluded and delicious bit of nature, hidden amid rocks and woods, on the shore of the Hudson, but possessing a refinement and an elegance in its wildness which would almost give one the idea that it was* an object of beauty in some royal park. One of the most secret streams that feed this finest of our rivers, finds its way down through a winding and almost trackless channel; and after fretting over rocks, and loitering in dark and limpid pools for several miles, suddenly bursts out over a precipice of fifty feet, and fills with its clear waters the sheltered basin seen in the drawing. Immense trees overhang it on every side, and follow the stream still on in its course; and, in the depth of summer, the foaming current scarcely catches a ray of the sun from its source to its outlet. The floor of the basin below the Fall is pebbly, the water is clear and cool, the spot secluded, and, in all respects. Nature has formed it for a bath. A fair and famous lady, residing a summer or two since at West Point, was its first known Musidora, and the limpid and bright basin is already called after her name. A large party visiting at a hospitable house, where the artist and his traveling companion were entertained during the heat of the last summer, proposed to accompany him on his visit to the Indian Fall. Excursions on the banks of the Hudson are usually made in boats; but it was necessary to see some points of view from the hills between, and we walked out to the stables to see what could be done for vehicles and cattle, A farm waggon, with its tail up in the air, built after an old Dutch fashion, which stiU prevails in New York,-a sort of loosely jointed, long, lumbering vehicle, which was meant to go over any rock smaller than a beer-barrel without upsetting-was the only " consarn," as the " help" called it, which would hold the party. With straw in the bottom, and straps put across from peg to peg, it would carry eleven, and the driver. Horses were the next consideration; and here we were rather staggered. A vicious old mare, that kept a wheelwright and a surgeon in constant employ,-and a powerful young colt, half broken,-were the only steeds in stable. However either might be made to go alone, they had never been tried together; and the double waggon harness was the worse for service. The "help" suggested very sensibly that the load would be too heavy to run away with, and that if the mare kicked, or the colt bolted-or, in short, if any thing happened, except backing over a precipice, we had only to sit still and let them do their "darndest." We cobbled the harness in its weak spots, shook down the straw for the ladies, nailed up the tail-board, which had lost its rods, got the cattle in, and brought up quietly to the door. The ladies and the champagne were put in, and the colt was led off by the bit, shaking his head, and catching up his hind leg; while the demure old mare drew off tamely and steadily, " never wicked," as the ploughman said, "till you got her dander up with a tough hill" The driver had a chain with a list bottom, and, having had some practice in Charing Cross and Fleet Street, fingered his reins and flourished his maple whip through the village, evidently not thinking himself or his driving de la petite biere. The road, which followed the ridges of the superb hills skirting the river opposite West Point, was, in some places, scarce fit even for a bridle-path; and, at every few paces, came a rock, which we believed passable when we had surged over it-not before. The two ill-matched animals drew to a wonder; and the ladies and the champagne had escaped all damage, till, as the enemy of mankind would have it, our ambitious whip saw stretching out before him a fair quarter of a mile of more even road. A slight touch of the whip sent off the colt in a jump, carrying away the off trace with the first spring; the old mare struck into a gallop, and, with the broken trace striking against the colt's heels, and the whippletree parallel with the pole, away they went as nearly in a tandem as the remaining part of the harness would allow. The tail-board soon flew off, and let out two unsuspecting gentlemen, who had placed their backsand their reliance upon it; and the screams of the ladies added what was wanting to raise the "dander" of the old mare to its most unpleasant climax. The straps gave way, the ladies rolled together in the straw, the driver tossed about on his list-bottomed chain, the champagne corks flew,-and presently, as if we were driven by a battering-ram against a wall, we brought up with a tremendous crash, and stood still. We had come to a sharp turn in the road; and the horses, unable to turn, had leaped a low stone wall, and breaking clear of every thing, left us on one side, while they thrashed the ripe wheat with the whippletrees on the other. The ladies were undamaged, fortunately; and, with one champagne bottle saved from the wreck, we completed the excursion to the Fall on foot, and were too happy to return by water. BIOGRAPHY OF ARTIST AND HISTORY OF THIS PRINT: William Henry Bartlett, (born in London, 26 March 1809; died at sea off Malta, 13 Sept 1854) was an English draughtsman, active also in the Near East, Continental Europe and North America. He was a prolific artist and an intrepid traveler. His work became widely known through numerous engravings after his drawings published in his own and other writers' topographical books. His primary concern was to extract the picturesque aspects of a place and by means of established pictorial conventions to render 'lively impressions of actual sights', as he wrote in the preface to The Nile Boat (London, 1849). The background for his work on his views of American Scenery, of which the picture represented is one of his several hundred illustrations on the subject, is as follows: In early 1836, having just returned from completing a series of sketches of the Low Countries of the Netherlands area, Mr. Bartlett's success with prior illustration projects allowed him to remain at home for only a month. His name, as an artist, was exceedingly popular. Everything to which he lent the charm of his pencil was crowned with success; and thus encouraged, his publisher, George Virtue and Sons of London, resolved upon another extensive illustrative work, that of the new lands of America. The idea was suggested by Mr. Nathaniel Parker Willis, to whom Mr. Bartlett had struck up a promising friendship. In April 1836, Mr. Bartlett went to Paris, and then to Havre where he boarded a large steamship to New York. This would be one of three visits to North America by Bartlett, this first venture lasting the longest, from July or August of 1836 to July 1837. The second tour in 1838 lasted from early summer to December, and the last in 1841-1842 was more focused on drawings of Canada than the USA. All of his American Scenery plates bear the date of 1837, 1838 or 1839. Bartlett's illustrations were of most of the popular views and places of the time. Not willing or able to take the time to leave the more frequented routes, Bartlett usually sketched the picturesque or sublime views that were reasonably close and often identifiable because other travelers and artists had referred to them. Working as he did on commission from Virtue, having no "permanent share or copyright" on his works, being often absent from home for long periods, it was really little wonder that he kept to fairly well-known itineraries, which would give him the best chance to fill his portfolio with sketches for the machine of which he was so important a part. He was also able to get assistance from NP Willis in planning his route, as this well known American author and journalist had traveled extensively in the Eastern US and in 1827 and 1836 had visited Niagara Falls by way of the Erie Canal. Bartlett was quoted as saying that nothing struck him as much in America "so much as its comparative want of associations". Here he had to accept a landscape nearly empty of a long tradition of architecture, of all the antiquities and monuments found so often in his views of Europe and the Middle East. However, the opposite was true that America offered Bartlett to record a landscape before it became settled. "He who traveled in America", said Willis, "must feed his imagination on the future. Instead of looking through a valley, which has presented the same aspect for hundreds of years, the American sees a valley with what it will be, the villages that will soon sparkle on the hill-sides, the mills, bridges, canals, and railroads that will span and border the stream. And it is for this fact that Bartlett's views of America are so valuable, because they capture the landscape before the developments of man set in: the buildings, barges, viaducts, cart paths and roads and deforestation that now make certain views nearly unrecognizable from this period. Please note: the terms used in our auctions for engraving, etching, heliogravure, lithograph, photogravure etc. are ALL prints on paper, and NOT blocks of steel or wood. "ENGRAVINGS" is the term commonly used for these paper prints that were created from a master plate, and were the most common method in the 1700s and 1800s for illustrating old books. These paper prints or "engravings" were inserted into the book with a tissue guard or onion skin frontis to protect them from transferring the image to the opposite page. These prints were usually on much thicker quality woven rag stock paper, although many were also printed and issued as loose stand alone lithographs. So this auction is for an antique paper print(s), probably from an old book, of very high quality and usually on very thick rag stock paper. A NOSTALGIC

Price: 8.99 USD

Location: New Providence, New Jersey

End Time: 2025-02-02T18:53:50.000Z

Shipping Cost: 7.95 USD