(BOSTON.)

Paul Revere.
[A View of Part of] the Town of Boston in New England and Brittish Ships of War Landing Their Troops! 1768.
Boston, early nineteenth century
Engraving on "Budgen/1803" watermarked laid paper. 9¼x15½ inches sheet size, wide margins; age tone and mat line, printer's crease at lower left, edge tears. 

Revere's revolutionary engraving illustrating the first deployment of some 4,000 British troops to quiet growing unrest among the colonists in Boston was printed and distributed in April 1770.  It was an effective piece of propaganda, feeding colonial turbulence which was intensely on the rise following the Boston Massacre about a month prior. 

Later in 1775, Revere altered the printing plate for "Landing of the Troops" in order to fulfill a commission to engrave a number of patriotic currency notes for the Massachusetts Provincial Congress. Approximately 3 inches from the right (i.e., left of the printed image) and 2 inches from the bottom of the plate were removed, and Revere engraved the series of bills on its verso.  Given the sensitive nature of these money matrices, the engraved copper plate was taken into custody by the Massachusetts government almost immediately and it is still held at the State Archives.

As with other works by Revere, several twentieth-century re-strikes of the plate have been published; this one notably obvious with the truncated image. However, much earlier impressions are scarce; according to Clarence S. Brigham: "Many restrikes have been made at different times from the copper. The American Antiquarian Society has at least four, all with the left and bottom margins cut off. Although they have little commercial value, it is a fact that in the Whitmore Sale of November 11 1902, lot number 2797, a copy of the restrike sold for $100 and is now in the Boston Public Library. Apparently two buyers were anxious to acquire it, not realizing that anyone could get a restrike from the original copper in the State Archives and have it printed on old paper."

Brigham's assertion there sort of hampers our facility to concretely date the present impression, though with the 1803 watermark, and the appearance of the Sewell reproduction in 1868 (see following lot), an early-nineteenth-century approximation feels correct. It is a curiosity unquestionably printed from Revere's original plate, perhaps struck as a bespoke request from an early collector recognizing a true impression would be virtually unobtainable, even then.  

Brigham, Paul Revere's Engravings, 1954, pages 79-85.  

  • Medium: Boston, early nineteenth century
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