Birch, William “Bath, near Bristol, Pennsylvania.”

William Birch.  “Bath, near Bristol, Pennsylvania.”  From The Port Folio. 

Philadelphia, June, 1811.  4 x 6 3/8.   Engraving.  Chip in bottom right hand margin.  Else, very good condition.  Fielding: 1781. 

The Port Folio was a new type of American magazine, “Devoted to Useful Science, the Liberal Arts, Legitimate Criticism, and Polite Literature.”   It was a product of the new century, appearing first in January 1801.  It began as a weekly issue until 1809, when it became monthly until its demise at the end of 1827.  As with the many magazines that followed it, The Port Folio included numerous illustrations, such as this attractive view by William Birch.  Birch gained prominence as for his important volume, The City of Philadelphia, first published in 1800.  Birch was a miniature painter as well as a landscape artist, and he had an acute eye for detail as well as a painterly sense of design.  This is a scene of a country house, Bath, located near Bristol, just south of Philadelphia on the Delaware River.  All images by Birch are desirable and this is one of the more unusual.

Other prints by William Birch:

High Street Market

State House Garden. Philadelphia

Library & Surgeons Hall, 5th St Philadelphia

Theatre in Chesnut [sic] Street Philadelphia

Destroy'd by Fire in 1820. The Late Theatre in Chestnut Street ...

New Theatre in Chesnut [sic] Street Philadelphia

The New Theatre in Chestnut Street Philadelphia Built 1822. Taken down 1856...

Girard's Bank, late the Bank of the United States ...

Philadelphia Bank in Fourth Street Philadelphia

Arch Street, with the Second Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia

New Market, in South Second Street Philadelphia

Back of the State House, Philadelphia

Second Street North from Market St. with Christ Church Philadelphia

High Street, with the First Presbyterian Church. Taken down in 1820. Philadelphia

An Unfinished House, in Chestnut Street Philadelphia

The Water Works in Centre Square Philadelphia

Landsdown, the Seat of the late Wm. Bingham, Esq. ...