Magnificent Bird’s-Eye View of New York City & Brooklyn by a True Master of the Genre

BACHMANN, John / SCHEDLER & LIEBLER. [New York, 1851]

BACHMANN, John / SCHEDLER & LIEBLER  [New York: 1851]  Bird's Eye View of New-York & Brooklyn.  25 x 32 ½ inches.  Lithograph delicately finished with hand color.  Mounted on rice paper, a few minor repairs, else excellent.                                                             

A sweeping, beautifully realized bird’s-eye view of New York City and Brooklyn.  Of its maker, Reps said, “no finer artist of city views worked in America than John Bachmann” (Reps, p. 160).  This highly accomplished work depicts urban areas within their still agrarian and watery surroundings from a breathtakingly lofty perspective.  Remarkably, this was one of Bachmann’s earliest works, his first being only two years earlier.  “Bachmann brought with him [presumably from Germany] fully developed artistic, lithographic, and printing skills, for his earliest prints reveal a high level of competence and complete command of the lithographic medium” (Reps, p. 160).  The bird’s-eye views of some of Bachmann’s later competitors can be somewhat lifeless, depicting cities sometimes nearly devoid of people and atmosphere.  In contrast, Bachmann here presents an animated city in motion and as if on a specific day and at a specific time.  The streets are filled with carriages and people, and on close examination, one can see many passengers aboard several ships in the harbor.  Bachmann also introduced artistic subtleties to the genre—in this instance, the deep and expansive perspective, the evocations of shadow and tonal gradations in the water, and the remarkable level of detail, especially in the fine renderings of ships.  Steam-powered vessels appear to be particularly highlighted, perhaps because steam engines were at the time of this view still fairly recent innovations. 

Not surprisingly, the view focuses on the southern part of Manhattan, as development at the time reached only to about 50^th Street.  Just to the north of this point in the view can be seen sparsely settled, rolling green space.  The view unmistakably conveys the city’s commercial vibrance through the scores of ships that clog nearly all its shoreline and its bustling streets. Below the view, tables list 12 notable locales, six each for New York and Brooklyn, that are keyed to the view. Brooklyn is seen in the view as substantially developed with many fine residences and distinguished municipal structures and churches.  However, the disparate towns and villages that then comprised Brooklyn can still be seen separated by rural areas. 

As reported by Reps, this was the first of three states or versions of this view published in 1851 with the same title but with different printers or publishers.  In the case of this work, Bachmann provided both the original artwork and lithography and was the publisher, while the Schedler and Liebler firm was the printer.  Curiously, Bachmann’s name is spelled two different ways in this work—with one and two n’s—as if the then fairly recent immigrant hadn’t settled on the exact name he would use in his new country.  As Reps observed, Bachmann published so many variations of his works with different publishers and printers that it’s difficult to unravel the publishing history of a particular image. 

This work appeared very early in the rise of the bird’s-eye view that became one of the preferred adornments for homes and offices in the United States until the early 20^th century.  It is estimated that as many as 4500 different such works appeared in this period in the United States; these included views of small towns as well of the largest cities.  These works became a quintessential American art form as they chronicled the explosion of towns and cities in the rapidly expanding United States.

Reps, J. W. Views and Viewmakers of Urban America, no. 2656, pp. 160-161.

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