Little Falls at Luzerne (No. 1 of The Hudson River Portfolio)
Etcher John Hill American, born England
after William Guy Wall Irish
Publisher Henry J. Megarey American
Not on view
This vista in the foothills of the Adirondacks centers on a ten-foot drop in the Hudson near the hamlet of Luzerne (now Lake Luzerne), and looks back towards the peaks where the great water course originates. The aquatint 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 William Guy 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.
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