New Year's Day in Old New York, from "The Graphic" Christmas Number
After George Henry Boughton British
Not on view
Boughton made his name with American colonial subjects and exhibited examples in London and New York from the 1860s through the 1890s. The present image from 1882, imagines New York shortly after the British took over from the Dutch in 1675 (in 1876 Boughton had painted "New Year’s Day in New Amsterdam," set around 1640). "The Graphic" chose this subject for a color-printed wood engraving, one of those they published annually as a premium for readers at Christmas, and the image centers on a young man who lifts his plumed hat to kiss a young woman wearing a ruff, fur-edged cape and muff. On April 3, 1870 "Harper's Weekly" reissued the print in New York, an indication of how British prints were often quickly recirculated by American publishers.