Autumnal Scenery, View in Amherst
Orra White Hitchcock, 1835

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Pendletons Autumnal Scenery
Pendletons Autumnal Scenery
Orra White Hitchcock (1796-1863)
Autumnal Scenery, View in Amherst
Pendleton's Lithography, Boston: 1835
6.25 x 8.5 inches, image
8.25 x 10.25, sheet
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A picturesque view from a spot overlooking the bucolic countryside of Amherst, in central Massachusetts. Buildings dot the hillside beyond a grove of trees, and two figures walk along the road. This is a rare print by John B. and William S. Pendleton, two American pioneers of lithography and globe making. It is based on a painting by artist Orra White Hitchcock.

Orra White Hitchcock was a talented landscape artist and geological illustrator, trained in drawing in the girls' schools she attended as well as taking lessons with private tutors. Her husband, Edward Hitchcock (1793-1864), a geology professor and the third president of Amherst College, is considered one of the founders of American geology. He conducted the first geological survey of Massachusetts during the 1830s, and participated in similar surveys of Vermont and New York. Orra White Hitchcock provided illustrations for many of his geological papers, including fossils and scenes of geological features of the New England landscape, as well as visual aids for his classroom. Their papers are in the archives of Amherst College and another of her Massachusetts landscape lithographs is in the collection of the National Museum of American Art of the Smithsonian Institution.

William (b. 1795) and John Pendleton (b. 1798) were early to recognize the potential of the lithographic process for prints and other applications such as globe gores, founding Pendleton's Lithography in Boston in 1825, the first successful and long-lived lithographic house of America. Born in New York City, they were both trained as engravers and worked in assorted businesses before coming together in Boston in the 1820s. John had studied the relatively new process of lithography in Europe and the Pendletons set up shop, quickly earning medals for their work. They trained a number of lithographic artists, including their first apprentice, the teenage Nathaniel Currier, who went on to co-found the famous lithography firm of Currier & Ives. In addition to artistic prints such as this one, Pendleton's printed maps, Massachusetts town plans, surveys and reports for the earliest New England railroad companies. They also printed a Geological Map of Massachusetts prepared by Edward Hitchcock to illustrate his book Geology of Massachusetts (1833 and 1835). A number of views included in both editions are credited to “Mrs. Hitchcock.” Pendleton's Lithography and its successor Moore 's Lithography were America's principal producers of lithographed maps between 1825 and 1840, and also produced globes, one of which is believed to date from 1834. Very few have survived, so probably few were manufactured.

References:

Aldrich, Michele L. and Leviton, Alan E. "Orra White Hitchcock (1796-1863), Geological Illustrator: Another Belle of Amherst." GSA Annual Meeting. 7 November 2001. http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2001AM/finalprogram/abstract_25979.htm (17 May 2004).

Ristow, Walter W. American Maps and Mapmakers: Commercial Cartography in the Nineteenth Century. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1985. p p. 244, 283-294.