Sign In

- Or use -
Forgot Password Create Account
Stock# 84607
Description

Portrait of an American Gentleman with a New York City Street Plan

The gentleman sitter in this watercolor portrait proudly displays a street plan of lower Manhattan with Broadway shown prominently in a horizontal aspect. Chambers and Reade are the other two streets shown in the plan. The date of 1813 appears on the map. 

The unidentified subject of the portrait is the same person depicted in a portrait miniature in the Manney Collection at the Metropolitan Museum. The portrait in the Met, which is a watercolor on ivory measuring 3 3/16 x 2 3/8 inches, also shows the man holding a New York City street plan with a date of 1813.  According to the catalogue of the Manney Collection, the sitter may have been an architect, a surveyor, or a city planner. We would add that the sitter might have been a real estate investor or speculator.

Mention connection with Washington Hall / Tammany Hall : untappedcities.com/2017/02/08/the-top-10-secrets-of-280-broadway-an-nyc-architectural-gem/2/

It should also probably be described as after the Nathaniel Rogers portrait at the Met.

Condition Description
Watercolor painting on bristol board. In an old black oval frame under glass. Condition is quite good.
Reference
cf. Johnson, Dale T. American Portrait Miniatures in the Manney Collection (1990) 201.