The Collected Library, Including Americana and Early Photography

New York: Wm. Endicott & Co., 1850. Tinted lithograph. 25 1/2 x 40 3/8 in. (648 x 1,025 mm). Mat burn; toned; pinholes in top corners; scattered small closed tears along edges; 1 3/4 in. (44 mm) closed tear in bottom edge; scattered creasing and surface soiling. In frame, 28 1/4 x 43 in. (717 x 1,092 mm). Deak 614 and 615 (north and east views only); Reps 3580-3582; not in Wainwright; ref. Norton, Bettina A., Edwin Whitefield Nineteenth-Century North American Scenery; ref. Cresswell, Donald H., "Philadelphia Lithography and American Landscape", in Philadelphia on Stone...

Scarce single-sheet issue of Edwin Whitefield's mid-19th century panorama of Philadelphia. Drawn from the State House steeple, the lithograph shows the city in great detail from each of the four cardinal points. This viewpoint was first popularized in 1838 by John Caspar Wild, as a supplement to his seminal Views of Philadelphia and Its Vicinity. Whitefield's version, published 12 years later, depicts the city from the same perspective and documents a period of great expansion and growth.

Another issue of this print was issued in four sheets and features additional descriptive captions below each view. Both are scarce to market.