Klinkowstrom, Axel L. “Gerards Bank i Philadelphia.”

Axel L. Klinkowstrom.  After William Birch.  “Gerards Bank i Philadelphia.”  From Atlas til Friherre Klinkowstroms Bref om de Forenta Staterne. 

Stockholm: Tryckeriet, 1824.  7 7/8 x 10 7/8.  Aquatint by Carl Fredrik Akrell.  Original hand color.  Light mat burn in margins, not affecting image.  Otherwise, very good condition.  Phillips: 88.

Baron Axel Klinkowstrom spent three years, from 1818 to 1820, in the United States as the emissary for Sweden.  On his tours around the country, the Baron took copious notes and made many sketches.  Upon his return to Sweden he issued a fascinating account of his travels, which was issued with an accompanying atlas that included nineteen views of New York, Washington and Philadelphia.  The prints were beautifully aquatinted by Akrell, and their high quality bespeaks a sophisticated intended audience.  This print shows the building occupied at the time by Girard’s Bank.  This building, completed in 1797, was designed for the Bank of the United States by Samuel Blodgett Jr.  When the Bank’s charter lapsed in 1811, Stephen Girard purchased the building as headquarters for his private bank.  Klinkowstrom’s view of the structure is closely derived from Birch’s earlier image of the same site.