Painting the Town -- Museum of the City of New York

Painted twenty-three years after the last auctions in Chatham Square, this canvas depicts accurately the setting of the open-air sales. The square, formed by the jagged confluence of Chatham Street (laid out in 1759 and renamed Park Row in 1886), East Broadway, the Bowery, and James, Division, Mott, and Worth Streets, was probably "assigned [by the Common Council] as a Horse Market" as early as the mid-eighteenth century.¹ Later, household goods and lumber were also auctioned there, and in 1805 the council, the city's legislative body established in 1675, permitted the sheriff and other officers to run auctions there and in several other locations.²

In 1810, as Chatham Square became more built up, the Common Council issued rules restricting the cantering and galloping of horses being exhibited for sale "within the limits of the Curb-Stone around said Square." The following year, a fence was ordered to enclose the square, and horse and carriage auctions were reassigned to the ground near the arsenal at Anthony Street.³

The kinds of cheap household goods displayed in this view -the apparently new crockery, baskets, and furniture among them -predominated at these vendues (as auctions of both new and used items were then called), but this did not prevent successful auctioneers from amassing fortunes. Philip Hone, New York's mayor from 1826 to 1827, retired from business life as a wealthy man in 1817, only twenty years after launching an auction business with his elder brother, John.⁴ Yet the city's "merchants & Storekeepers & formed Societies for preventing Sales by Auction," and by March 1820 all Chatham Square auction permits were revoked.⁵

Following the ban on the spirited open-air auctions, Chatham Square gradually deteriorated. King's Handbook of New York in 1893 described the district as "a veritable 'Chinatown,' with all the filth, immorality and picturesque foreignness which that name implies."⁶

E. Didier, the artist of this work, exhibited watercolors and paintings, including this one, at the Academy of Design during the mid-1840s. This painting may be the work of the Eugene Didier listed in the 1843 city directory as an importer and commission merchant at 73 William Street, a short distance from Chatham Square, and with a home on Greenwich Street.⁷ W. N. Seymour and H. Kipp and Company, the furniture businesses depicted on the far side of Chatham Square, are also listed in directories of the period. These details, along with the woman urgently tugging at the auctioneer's coattails and the red flag, an emblem hung out to attract potential buyers to an auction,⁸ are realistic elements at variance with the caricatured faces of the auctioneer and various individuals in the crowd.

Notes:

1 Manual of the Common Council, quoted in I. N. Phelps Stokes, The Iconography of Manhattan Island (New York: Robert H. Dodd, 1926), vol. 5, p. 1436.

2 Ibid., p. 1433.

3 Ibid., pp. 1522, 1535.

4 Allan Nevins, ed., The Diary of Philip Hone, 1828 -1851 (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1927), pp. viii -ix.

5 The quotation is from a letter dated July 5, 1821, from George N. Gracie to his uncle, quoted in Stokes, Iconography of Manhattan Island, vol. 5, p. 1617. See p. 1608 for the revocation of auction permits.

6 Moses King, ed., King's Handbook of New York (Boston: Moses King, 1893), p. 158.

7 At this same period, a Mme Elizabeth Didier (1803 -1877), a French porcelain painter, was also living in New York; "E. Didier" could also refer to her.

8 Stokes, in Iconography of Manhattan Island, vol. 5, p. 1602, quotes a visiting Englishman, Charles H. Wilson, who wrote about his observations in New York in 1819 -1820: "In my perambulations I found a new object of attraction; red flags at several doors, and 'vendue' inscribed thereon -Dutch term for auction."


Auction in Chatham Square 1843 (depicting 1820) E. Didier (active 1843) Oil on canvas, 281/2 X 351/2 Anonymous gift, 51.222.1
Painted twenty-three years after the last auctions in Chatham Square, this canvas depicts accurately the setting of the open-air sales. The square, formed by the jagged confluence of Chatham Street (laid out in 1759 and renamed Park Row in 1886), East Broadway, the Bowery, and James, Division, Mott, and Worth Streets, was probably "assigned [by the Common Council] as a Horse Market" as early as the mid-eighteenth century.¹ Later, household goods and lumber were also auctioned there, and in 1805 the council, the city's legislative body established in 1675, permitted the sheriff and other officers to run auctions there and in several other locations.² In 1810, as Chatham Square became more built up, the Common Council issued rules restricting the cantering and galloping of horses being exhibited for sale "within the limits of the Curb-Stone around said Square." The following year, a fence was ordered to enclose the square, and horse and carriage auctions were reassigned to the ground near the arsenal at Anthony Street.³ The kinds of cheap household goods displayed in this view -the apparently new crockery, baskets, and furniture among them -predominated at these vendues (as auctions of both new and used items were then called), but this did not prevent successful auctioneers from amassing fortunes. Philip Hone, New York's mayor from 1826 to 1827, retired from business life as a wealthy man in 1817, only twenty years after launching an auction business with his elder brother, John.⁴ Yet the city's "merchants & Storekeepers & formed Societies for preventing Sales by Auction," and by March 1820 all Chatham Square auction permits were revoked.⁵ Following the ban on the spirited open-air auctions, Chatham Square gradually deteriorated. King's Handbook of New York in 1893 described the district as "a veritable 'Chinatown,' with all the filth, immorality and picturesque foreignness which that name implies."⁶ E. Didier, the artist of this work, exhibited watercolors and paintings, including this one, at the Academy of Design during the mid-1840s. This painting may be the work of the Eugene Didier listed in the 1843 city directory as an importer and commission merchant at 73 William Street, a short distance from Chatham Square, and with a home on Greenwich Street.⁷ W. N. Seymour and H. Kipp and Company, the furniture businesses depicted on the far side of Chatham Square, are also listed in directories of the period. These details, along with the woman urgently tugging at the auctioneer's coattails and the red flag, an emblem hung out to attract potential buyers to an auction,⁸ are realistic elements at variance with the caricatured faces of the auctioneer and various individuals in the crowd. Notes: 1 Manual of the Common Council, quoted in I. N. Phelps Stokes, The Iconography of Manhattan Island (New York: Robert H. Dodd, 1926), vol. 5, p. 1436. 2 Ibid., p. 1433. 3 Ibid., pp. 1522, 1535. 4 Allan Nevins, ed., The Diary of Philip Hone, 1828 -1851 (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1927), pp. viii -ix. 5 The quotation is from a letter dated July 5, 1821, from George N. Gracie to his uncle, quoted in Stokes, Iconography of Manhattan Island, vol. 5, p. 1617. See p. 1608 for the revocation of auction permits. 6 Moses King, ed., King's Handbook of New York (Boston: Moses King, 1893), p. 158. 7 At this same period, a Mme Elizabeth Didier (1803 -1877), a French porcelain painter, was also living in New York; "E. Didier" could also refer to her. 8 Stokes, in Iconography of Manhattan Island, vol. 5, p. 1602, quotes a visiting Englishman, Charles H. Wilson, who wrote about his observations in New York in 1819 -1820: "In my perambulations I found a new object of attraction; red flags at several doors, and 'vendue' inscribed thereon -Dutch term for auction."