The following works, representative of the much larger survey of painted cityscapes in the Museum of the City of New York, reflect the chronological, stylistic, and thematic range of this rich collection. The accompanying text documents the various kinds of historical evidence about the physical and ideological properties of New York City that curators have extracted from such paintings. The selection also suggests the wide variation of urban-scene artists encompassed in these holdings, from observant amateurs to academy-trained professionals. The date of a subject or event depicted in a painting, whether synchronous with the painting's production or remembered by the artist years after the fact, has governed the general chronological arrangement of entries and associated plates. In the course of researching individual paintings, efforts were made to confirm or correct dates (those of execution as well as of scene depicted) and titles associated with the works at the time of their acquisition by the Museum. Entries and endnotes explain any significant variations or inconsistencies encountered during these investigations. The titles and dates of some paintings were indicated by the artist. Other works have assumed revised titles based on exhibition records and archival sources consulted in the process of preparing this book. Paintings that entered the Museum without any associated titles or dates have been assigned approximate dates and subject titles, usually based on stylistic evidence, conservation analysis, knowledge of the artist's working activity in New York, and place or section of the city documented. Dimensions of paintings are given in inches, with height preceding width. Curatorial front matter for each painting also includes its accession number, indicating the year in which the work was processed into the permaent collection of the Museum of the City of New York. The Museum Archives typically contain a great deal of supplementary information about the individual work as "artifact" (including conservation, ownership, and exhibition histories), the subject matter shown, and the biographical context of the painting within the career of its maker.

Due to the number of images involved, this catalogue has been separated into two pages at roughly the 1900 period. All images are links to additional images and information on that particular piece.

 

Cat. 1
Dance on the Battery in the Presence of Peter Stuyvesant
1838 (depicting 1809)
Asher B. Durand
(1796 -1886)

Cat. 2
Le coin de Waren [sic] et de Greenwich. Dessiné en janvier 1809. Pendant la neige 1809
Baroness Anne Marguerite Henriette Rouille de Marigny Hyde de Neuville
(c. 1761 -1849)

Cat. 3
Broadway and City Hall
1818
Baron Axel Klinköwstrom
(1775 -1847)

Cat. 19
Annual Fair of the American Institute at Niblo's Garden
c. 1845
Benjamin Johns Harrison (1834 -1903)

Cat. 20
High Bridge
c. 1850
Artist unknown

Cat. 21
Steamer "Hartford" Capt. LeFevre, Bound for California, Sailed from New York February 1849
1849
Joseph B. Smith
(1798 -1876)