The Valley of the Shenandoah, from Jefferson Rock (Harpers Ferry) .....Virtue 1838

Cartographer : - Bartlett, William H. 1809 - 1854

Date: - 1838 - dated

Size of print only without frame: - 11in x 8in (280mm x 205mm)

Ref#: - 35471

Condition: - (A+) Fine Condition

Retains label from past antique dealer stating, This print is guaranteed to be over 100 years old.

Description:

This original steel-plate engraved antique print—in antique matt and frame—by William Bartlett was published by Samuel Walker in the 1842 edition of Nathaniel Parker Willis American Scenery; or Land, Lake, and River: Illustrations of Transatlantic Nature

General Definitions:

Paper thickness and quality: - Heavy and stable

Paper color : - off white

General color appearance: -

Paper size: - 11in x 8in (280mm x 205mm)

Plate size: - 11in x 8in (280mm x 205mm)

Margins: - Min 1/2in (12mm)

Condition: Good/antique. Light wear overall. Sold as is.

Background:

Harpers Ferry is a historic town in Jefferson County, West Virginia, United States, in the lower Shenandoah Valley. The population was 285 at the 2020 census. Situated at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers, where the U.S. states of Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia meet, it is the easternmost town in West Virginia and during the Civil War was the northernmost point of Confederate-controlled territory. It has been called the best strategic point in the whole South.

The town was formerly spelled Harpers Ferry with an apostrophe, so named because in the 18th century it was the site of a ferry service owned and operated by Robert Harper. The United States Board on Geographic Names, whose Domestic Name Committee is reluctant to include apostrophes in official place names, established the standard spelling of Harpers Ferry by 1891.

By far, the most important event in the towns history was John Browns raid on the Harpers Ferry Armory in 1859.

Prior to the Civil War, Harpers Ferry was a manufacturing town as well as a major transportation hub. (See Virginius Island and Harpers Ferry Armory.)

Bartlett, William H. 1809 - 1854

Was a British artist, best known for his numerous drawings rendered into steel engravings.

Bartlett was born in Kentish Town, London in 1809. He was apprenticed to John Britton (1771–1857), and became one of the foremost illustrators of topography of his generation. He travelled throughout Britain, and in the mid and late 1840s he travelled extensively in the Balkans and the Middle East. He made four visits to North America between 1836 and 1852.

In 1835, Bartlett first visited the United States to draw the buildings, towns and scenery of the north-eastern states. The finely detailed steel engravings Bartlett produced were published uncolored with a text by Nathaniel Parker Willis as American Scenery; or Land, Lake, and River: Illustrations of Transatlantic Nature. American Scenery was published by George Virtue in London in 30 monthly installments from 1837 to 1839. Bound editions of the work were published from 1840 onward.

In 1838 Bartlett was in Canada producing sketches for Willis Canadian Scenery Illustrated, published in 1842.

Bartlett made sepia wash drawings the exact size to be engraved. His engraved views were widely copied by artists, but no signed oil painting by his hand is known. Engravings based on Bartletts views were later used in his posthumous History of the United States of North America, continued by Bernard Bolingbroke Woodward and published around 1856.

William Henry Bartlett died of fever on board of a French ship off the coast of Malta returning from his last trip to the Near East, in 1854.

Bartletts primary concern was to render lively impressions of actual sights, as he wrote in the preface to The Nile Boat (London, 1849). Many views contain some ruin or element of the past including many scenes of churches, abbeys, cathedrals and castles, and Nathaniel Parker Willis described Bartletts talent thus: Bartlett could select his point of view so as to bring prominently into his sketch the castle or the cathedral, which history or antiquity had allowed.