New York from Governor's Island (No. 20 of The Hudson River Portfolio)

From New York Harbor, we here look back toward Manhattan and the mouth of the Hudson. Agg's related text traces the city's history from a Dutch settlement to a center of world trade whose population was estimated at 140,000 in 1824. "Possessing advantages which are scarcely to be surpassed, in its proximity to the ocean, and its facilities of intercourse with the interior by means of that splendid system of internal navigation which has been so successfully carried into effect, its commercial character must rapidly increase; and the time may not be very remote when it will outstrip, in its wealth, population, and credit, the most extensive sea-ports of the old world. In the view which lies before us, the forest of masts, the spires, and forts, combine to impress the mind with a pretty correct idea of the present importance of the city." The print comes from the Hudson River Portfolio, a monument of American printmaking produced through the collaboration of artists, a writer, and publishers. In the summer of 1820, the Irish-born Wall toured and sketched along the Hudson, then painted a series of large watercolors. Prints of equal scale were proposed—to be issued to subscribers in sets of four—and John Rubens Smith hired to work the plates. Almost immediately, Smith was replaced by the skilled London-trained aquatint engraver John Hill, who finished the first four plates, and produced sixteen more by 1825. Over the next decade, the popularity of the Portfolio stimulated new appreciation for American landscape, and prepared the way for the Hudson River School.