American Art and Pennsylvania Impressionists

Note

While the previous Lot focused on the main building of the 1876 Centennial Exposition, the present work depicts the nearby Columbia Avenue Bridge stretching over the Schuylkill river, which enabled the 10,000,000 visitors to access the exhibition site from Lancaster County. It is faitfully represented as the covered bridge of white pine and seven spans originally built in 1834, and serves as an important visual reminder of the rural state of the outskirts of Philadelphia then. A second bridge was erected in 1886 to carry the increasing freight traffic. The current bridge, officially called Columbia Railroad Bridge, dates from 1920 and is now a two train track concrete arch bridge.