Description:
Mezzotint in black and white titled, "The Boston Troops, as reviewed on President Adams's birth day on the Common by his Honr. Lieut. Governor Gill & Major Genl. Elliot, under the command of Brigadier Genl. Winslow; also a view of the New State House." John Adams (October 30, 1735-July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat, political theorist, and the second President of the United States (1797-1801). Moses Gill (January 18, 1734-May 20, 1800) was Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts from 1794 until his death; when Governor Increase Sumner died on June 7, 1799, he became Acting Governor, but by law, retained the title of Lieutenant Governor. This mezzotint was issued as a folding frontispiece to the first number of a short-lived magazine, "The Columbia Phenix and Boston Review," which ran from January to July 1800. On Feb. 6, 1800, the editor apologized "to a great portion of his Subscribers, for the omission of the Frontispiece described in page 7th of this work. A very liberal sum was given to the Engraver, to finish the Plate in a style of excellence; but he has executed the Engraving so ineffectually, that it will not answer the required purpose, and now is altogether useless." It is assumed that that the copper was too soft or the plate too lightly engraved that the plate wore out after very few impressions had been pulled. There are few of these original prints available. The print was re-engraved by Boston engraver Sidney L. Smith (1849-1929) and published by Boston bookseller and publisher Charles E. Goodspeed (1867-1950) in 1903. The weak and washed-out appearance of Smith's engraving may the result of his working from a weak impression of the original. The scene depicts the celebration of October 30, 1799 on the Boston Common with groups of people milling including a group gathered around a table with two tankards in the foreground; a line of civilians, carriage, firing canon, and, a group of cavalry troops in the mid-ground; and a row of buildings along the ridge in the background including the Massachusetts State House designed by Charles Bulfinch (1763-1844) completed in 1798 flanked by a beacon on the right, and the Hancock House built for Thomas Hancock in 1737 and torn down in 1863 to make way for a new wing of the State House.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+82.186 |
