VIEW ABOVE THE FALLS OF SCHUYLKILL.

An important and scarce early American color print, based on a painting by Joshua Shaw, a British landscape artist who came to the United States in 1817. He conceived the idea of a published series of American views, which he executed over the next few years and which were published in Philadelphia as a series of nineteen plates entitled PICTURESQUE VIEWS OF AMERICAN SCENERY. The original edition of 1819 was issued by Moses Thomas and exists in only a few copies. The present plate is from the 1820 second issue published by Mathew Carey, also very rare. In this bucolic scene, a pair of river men in a small boat shove off from the bank at a wide point of the upper Schuykill River. In the distance, a few houses dot the farm land on the opposite side of the river, all beneath a partly-sunny, partly-cloudy sky. Complete sets of PICTURESQUE VIEWS. have appeared on the market only twice in the past fifty years and have brought in the neighborhood of $200,000 each time. Individual plates are somewhat less rare, but still very scarce on the market. A wonderful view of a verdant Pennsylvania. DEÁK, PICTURING AMERICA 315. HOWES S345 (PICTURESQUE VIEWS OF AMERICAN SCENERY). MILES & REESE, AMERICA PICTURED TO THE LIFE 5. REESE, STAMPED WITH A NATIONAL CHARACTER 5. Colored engraving, 12 x 15¼ inches to the plate mark on an approximately 14½ x 18-inch sheet. Framed. Scattered light foxing in margins, light toning. Very good.…