William Henry Bartlett (1809-1854) was British topographical illustrator and landscape artist especially trained to draw for steel plate engravings and famous for his views of all parts of the world which appeared in a series of travel volumes issued in the nineteenth century. He traveled to America serveral times beginning in 1835 to draw the buildings, towns and scenery of the northeastern states. He followed popular tourist routes from NYC, the Hudosn River, the White Mountains, Niagra Falls, traveling the New England States and Mid-Atlantic region. The resulting publication, American Scenery, or, Land, Lake, and River Illustrations of Transatlantic Nature, was published by George Virtue in London in monthly installments from 1837 to November, 1839, and then the entire work was issued in two volumes in January 1840. The literay text was written by Nathanial P. Willis, american author. The book and Bartlett's prints were a huge success and were reissued numerous times up to about 1870. The finely detailed steel plate engravings were published uncolored. A small number of bound editions were published with hand coloring, but most were uncolored steel plate engravings. Once disbound it is very difficult to know which plates were colored after. We believe our Bartlett original antique prints were hand-colored sometime after publication. |
