Click main image below to view enlargements and captions.

Map, New York State, Ensign, Bridgman & Fanning, Antique Illustrated Map, 1855

$3,500

Pictorial New-York
Ensign, Bridgman & Fanning, New York: 1855
Hand-colored engraving
33 x 25.25 inches overall
$3,500

Rare illustrated broadside comprised principally of a map of New York State. Geography is detailed, showing counties outlined in red, with towns and cities colored blue, pink, green, and yellow. Rivers, lakes and ponds are delineated, and mountain ranges are indicated with hatched shading. The state line is shaded with a wide orange border. There two large inset views of New York City: one from Union Square, and “Bird’s-Eye View of New York.” Other large insets include “View of Niagara Falls from the Canada Side,” the State Seal of New York, and four portraits of famous New Yorkers in history: Robert Fulton, Philip Schuyler, Peter Stuyvesant and De Witt Clinton. In the bottom corners are large inset maps of Buffalo and New York City. Between the inset illustrations are boxes with statistical information about New York population, agricultural products, religious denominations, and so forth. There is also almanac type information about New York history, laws, and a box of text about New York City. A decorative border surrounds the entire broadside, and numerous other borders are including around the elements within it.

Product description continues below.

Description

Timothy and Edward Ensign were partners in a New York City printing firm, active in a series of partnerships between 1841 and 1861, working with Phelps and Humphrey, as Ensigns & Thayer (with Horace Thayer), and finally, as Ensign, Bridgman & Fanning. Over their career they produced a number of notable prints on subjects from American history as well as maps and U.S. traveler’s guides.

Full publication: Published by Ensign, Bridgman & Fanning, 156 William Street, New York. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, by Ensign, Bridgman & Fanning, in the Southern District Court of the United States for New York.

Condition: Dissected, folding, and mounted on linen, with narrow margins, as issued; now professionally restored as remounted on new linen with the sections flush next to each other and without the folds. Lightly professionally cleaned and deacidified with only minor remaining toning, wear; slightly greater toning and wear at original sections.

References:

Groce, George C. and Wallace, David H. The New-York Historical Society’s Dictionary of Artists in America 1564-1860. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1969. p. 15.

Peters, Harry T. America on Stone. U.S.: Doubleday, Doran, 1931. pp. 181, 325.

Additional information

Century

19th Century