Shaw, Joshua. “York Springs, Adams County, in Pennsylvania”

Joshua Shaw. “York Springs, Adams County, in Pennsylvania.”

From The Analectic Magazine. Philadelphia: 1819. 3 7/8 x 6 7/8.  Aquatint by John Hill. Very good condition.

A lovely aquatint of York Springs by two of the greatest names in early American printmaking.  The artist, Joshua Shaw, and the engraver, John Hill, were both Englishmen who emigrated to America at the beginning of the nineteenth century and very soon stamped their genus on American art and printmaking.  They collaborated in an important portfolios of views called Picturesque Views of American Scenery, which contained large aquatints of American scenes. 

In 1812, Philadelphia bookseller and publisher Moses Thomas purchased a monthly magazine entitled Select Reviews, engaged Washington Irving as editor, and renamed the publication The Analectic Magazine. Irving, his brother-in-law J. K. Paulding, Gulian C. Verplanck and, later, Thomas Isaac Wharton wrote much of the material, which concentrated on literary reviews, articles on travel and science, biographies of naval heroes, and reprints of selections from British periodicals. Illustration “was one of the magazine’s chief distinctions. Not only were there the usual engravings on copper, but some of the earliest magazine experiments in lithography and wood engraving appeared here. The plates were chiefly portraits, though some other subjects were used.” (Mott, A History of American Magazines)