[City Hall, New York]

Marcus Ormsbee American

Not on view

Marcus Ormsbee began his career as a photographer in New York City in the 1840s. He was primarily active as a portraitist but, as in this work, also made elegant city views rich in urban detail. Alongside the ghostly shadows of itinerant merchants and their customers sits a root beer vendor's wagon-a welcome sight for pedestrians on a hot summer afternoon. City Hall (Mangan and McComb, 1812) looms large, overwhelming the human activity yet proposing itself as a fine amalgam of the French Renaissance and more homegrown Colonial influences.

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