View in King Street (Looking Eastward), City of Toronto, Upper Canada
After Thomas Young Canadian, born England
Drawn on stone by John H. Bufford American
Printed and published by Nathaniel Currier American
Not on view
In 1834, shortly after the town of York was incorporated as the city of Toronto in the province of Upper Canada, architect Thomas Young made an overall view of the new city along the shore of Lake Ontario, in addition to three additional watercolors depicting the city's most important buildings. Young, who had emigrated from England to Canada in 1832, soon established himself in Toronto as an artist, teacher, architect, politician, civil engineer and surveyor. From 1834 to 1839, he taught drawing at Upper Canada College, and advertised for subscribers to purchase his print series of four views of Toronto. The lithographs based on Young's watercolors were among the earliest made by Nathaniel Currier in his New York City print shop, which issued its first lithographs in 1835, and would become the most prolific of American printmaking establishments in the nineteenth century. Currier's prints of early Canada immediately became popular and remained so for decades.
King Street, which was among the earliest streets laid out in the new city, was Toronto's major East-West commercial thoroughfare. This rare print shows several major public buildings and St. James Church opposite a row of shops (with living quarters on the second story).