The Earliest Printed View of Ithaca, New York

WALTON, Henry/ J. H. BUFFORD & Co. [New York, 1836]

Ithaca, New York/ Early American Lithography.  WALTON, Henry [New York: J. H. Bufford & Co., New York: 1836]  East View of Ithaca, Tompkins County, N.Y. Taken in Septr. 1836.  10 ½ x 17 ¼ inches.  Lithograph with quite vibrant, early hand color.  Some pale foxing and discoloration primarily on verso, mended tears lower left margin, overall very good. 

           
This very scarce view, the earliest of Ithaca, depicts a thriving, dignified town, embraced by its bucolic surroundings as seen from the east.  It appeared only 15 years after Ithaca was legally incorporated in 1821.  It is also an early example of American lithography, which did not become commercially viable until the late 1820s.

The elevated vantage point of the view is now the approximate location of Cornell University, founded in 1865.  Despite the town’s agrarian setting in this view, several substantial buildings can be seen in it.  In 1836, Ithaca was emerging as a center of education and commerce, home to religious colleges and a number of Greek Revival-style buildings. The Clinton House, seen as the three-story building to the left at the bottom of the hill in the print, is a well-known landmark that still stands today as a historic hotel.

The earliest American city views tended to present towns and cities panoramically within the context of their natural settings, much as a landscape painter would.  Taken together they might be said to present an idealized harmony between urban life and the natural world.  This view, with its unhurried human figures in the foreground and the still modest town in the middle ground, does indeed convey a sense of peace and tranquility.  The unpaved dirt road that runs from the foreground and bisects the town further enhances the bucolic nature of the view. 

Henry Walton (1746-1813) was an American painter, draftsman, and lithographer known for his highly detailed town views and portraiture.  This view was Walton’s first to be published, and it must have met with considerable commercial success, as he produced two other views of Ithaca in quick succession in 1838 and 1840.  These were followed by views of other towns in the area.  Not uncommon for artists who produced town views in the 19^th century, Walton had an itinerant career, having lived in various New York locations, California, and finally in Cassopolis, Michigan. 

Of his style and approach to town views, Deak observed:

Precise architectural and topographic renderings are typical of the town views of Henry Walton, whose work contains a strong blend of artistic sophistication and naiveté. Few details are lost in his somewhat ambitious panorama of Ithaca taken from East, or College, Hill, looking west down Seneca Street.

Deák includes an analysis by John W. Reps, one of the foremost scholars on American views:

In his depictions of towns Walton relied on what he could see from vantage points on nearby elevations. Because the region where he worked is hilly, his views resemble the later views of others who selected imaginary viewpoints and showed their subjects as if seen from the air. Walton probably did make close-up sketches of prominent buildings so that he could render their details accurately in smaller size, but he was essentially an easel artist.

John Henry Bufford (1810-1870) was an influential lithographer, who introduced new shading and color techniques to the industry that are evident in this work. His firm, Bufford’s Lithography, produced a wide range of views, portraits, and commercial prints that shaped visual culture in the antebellum United States.  Bufford began as an apprentice of William S. Pendleton in Boston, the first company to extensively utilize lithography, and then came to New York and worked for both Endicott and Nathaniel Currier, who soon thereafter founded Currier & Ives. Bufford traded under his own name in New York from 1835 to about 1840, then returned to Boston, where he first worked in association with B.W. Thayer until 1844. From 1845, he was in business as J.H. Bufford & Co. Bufford’s work was wide ranging in subject and of high quality, including many important views of Boston, New York, and New England locations; a major series of whaling subjects; portraits, including an important one of Abraham Lincoln; Civil War scenes; genre prints; and music sheets. Among his apprentices from 1855 to 1857 was the young Winslow Homer.  In his classic work on American lithography, Harry T. Peters says of Bufford: “His work is almost invariably good, his sense of the essential in the general field seems to have been second only to that of Currier & Ives, his importance can be seen, and his contribution to Americana is in the very first rank” (Peters, 127).

Reps, J. Views and Viewmakers of Urban America, no. 2566, pp. 212-213; Deák, Gloria Gilda. Picturing America. Princeton University Press: 1989. Item 457, pp. 308; 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. 94 (Bufford); “John Henry Bufford.” American Scoop. https://www.america-scoop.com/index.php/en/reporters/painters/1839-storck-william-penniman-19xx-usa-2 (12 March 2025).

Price: $4,750.00