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Description

Fine early view of New York City from the Hoboken Ferry in New Jersey, and engraved by Francis Jukes in London.

Originally issued as one of a set of four, the views being New York from Hobuck Ferry, Mount Vernon, Passaic Falls, and Hudson River near West Point. Only one complete set is known to exist and it is in the I. N. Phelps Stokes collection of the New York Public Library.

Scottish-born painter Alexander Robertson (1772-1841) and his brother Archibald Robertson (1765-1835) were founders of the city's first art school, the Columbia Academy. Francis Jukes (1745-1812) was a talented engraver, primarily aquatint, and publisher based in London.

In 1609, Henry Hudson's ship, the Half Moon, took harborage in Hoboken Cove, by the border of Weehawken, where the navigator noted the island and its green serpentine rock. Hudson and his crew were the first Europeans known to have seen Hoboken, but soon after, others followed, including Peter Stuyvesant, the Dutch governor of Manhattan, who bought all the land between the Hackensack and Hudson rivers in 1658.

More than a hundred years later, in 1783, the "island" was purchased by Colonel John Stevens for 18,360 pounds sterling and settled under the name Hoboken. Stevens created a Ferry service in 1821, so the present view significantly pre-dates this service.