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View, Washington, D.C., Washington City and Georgetown, Antique Lithograph, 1849

$5,800

Edward Weber (d. 1848) (artist)
E. Weber & Co. (lithographer)
View of Washington City and Georgetown
Casimir Bohn, Washington, D.C.: 1849
Tinted lithograph with hand-coloring
17.5 x 26.25 inches, border
21.75 x 29.5 inches, overall
$5,800

View of present-day Washington, D.C., looking west from the portico of the U.S. Capitol, surrounded by 20 vignettes of important buildings and monuments. The thoroughfare leading toward the horizon is Pennsylvania Avenue, and at the far end is the building designed for Treasury Department. The view probably shows the city as it looked in 1848, although the Washington Monument was not yet built and its depiction, including a base that was never constructed, is based on the architect’s design. The monument is shown between the Observatory and the Smithsonian Institution. According to the scholar Gloria Gilda Déak, this print was lithographed, and probably drawn, by Edward Weber as a companion to a view of Baltimore, Maryland.

Description

View of present-day Washington, D.C., looking west from the portico of the U.S. Capitol, surrounded by 20 vignettes of important buildings and monuments. The thoroughfare leading toward the horizon is Pennsylvania Avenue, and at the far end is the building designed for Treasury Department. The view probably shows the city as it looked in 1848, although the Washington Monument was not yet built and its depiction, including a base that was never constructed, is based on the architect’s design. The monument is shown between the Observatory and the Smithsonian Institution. According to the scholar Gloria Gilda Déak, this print was lithographed, and probably drawn, by Edward Weber as a companion to a view of Baltimore, Maryland.

Edward Weber (d. 1848) was a lithographer whose firm, Edward Weber and Company, operated in Baltimore, Maryland from 1835 to 1854. After Weber’s death in 1848, his nephew August Hoen took over the business, eventually renamed A. Hoen & Company. In addition to historically important views of Baltimore and Washington, D.C., Weber’s output included military and naval scenes, portraits, studies of Native Americans by Ferdinand Pettrick, certificates, book illustrations, and illustrations of reports of Western explorations.

List of vignettes: East Front of the Capitol; Treasury; Smithsonian Institute; Presidents House; Post Office; Patent Office; West Front of the Capitol; War Department; Jackson Monument; Observatory; Washington Monument; Arsenal; Monastery; Aqueduct Near Georgetown; Georgetown College; Navy Yard; Jackson Hall; Pension Office; Greenoughs Statue of Washington; City Hall.

Condition: Generally very good with the usual overall light toning and wear. Few soft and hard creases, mostly in margins. Short tear extending into sky of a vignette professionally restored, unobtrusive. Few small marginal chips restored.

References:

Deák, Gloria Gilda. Picturing America. Princeton University Press: 1989. 577.

Goode, James M. and Laura Bud Schiavo. Washington Images: Rare Maps and Prints from the Albert H. Small Collection. Washington, D.C.: The Historical Society of Washington, D.C., 2004.

Peters, Harry T. America on Stone. U.S.: Doubleday, Doran, 1931. pp. 397-398.

Additional information

Century

19th Century