Treasures From the Archives

"Five days after the Declaration of Independence was signed in Philadelphia, a pro-revolutionary group known as the New York Sons of Liberty tore down a statue of George III standing at Broadway and Bowling Green. This imaginative recreation of that event correctly shows enslaved and free Black men performing most of the labor, but dresses them in fanciful Turkish attire—a costume often worn by Black men in European art that refers to the legality of slavery in the Ottoman Empire. The Baroque architecture is more characteristic of a large European city from that era than Anglo-Dutch colonial New York, and the actual statue showed the king on horseback. Published in Paris, but based on a print issued slightly before in Augsburg and demonstrates broad European interest in the dramatic events taking place across the Atlantic. It was intended to be shown on a wall or screen using a "magic lantern", an optical device that projected the image by means of candles and mirrors, and often called a "Vue d'Optique."

Ladies' Home Journal 1908-07

Cover art by Walter Whitehead

"In their teacher's absence, a group of children attending a country dame school grow restless and seem ready to get into mischief. One takes off her smock, another eats an apple, others look at a jug and mug at right. Rankley had trained at the schools of the Royal Academy and sent literary, poetic and dramatic subjects there for exhibition from 1841. By the 1850s he was moving towards genre and contemporary narrative with titles such as "The Sunday School" (1850), "The Village School" (1856). The present image belongs to the latter group, and the related painting was shown at the Royal Academy in 1857, then engraved by Harvey Orrin Smith for the "Illustrated London News." Founded in 1842 as the world’s first weekly news magazine, this periodical regularly published examples of contemporary art and exhibition reviews."

1782

"Five days after the Declaration of Independence was signed in Philadelphia, a pro-revolutionary group known as the New York Sons of Liberty tore down a statue of George III standing at Broadway and Bowling Green. This imaginative recreation of that event correctly shows enslaved and free Black men performing most of the labor, but dresses them in fanciful Turkish attire—a costume often worn by Black men in European art that refers to the legality of slavery in the Ottoman Empire. The Baroque architecture is more characteristic of a large European city from that era than Anglo-Dutch colonial New York, and the actual statue showed the king on horseback. Published in Paris, but based on a print issued slightly before in Augsburg and demonstrates broad European interest in the dramatic events taking place across the Atlantic. It was intended to be shown on a wall or screen using a "magic lantern", an optical device that projected the image by means of candles and mirrors, and often called a "Vue d'Optique."

David Claypoole Johnston American Printer Pendleton's Lithography American 1830

After an engraving by Asher Brown Durand American After a painting by John Trumbull American early 19th century

Publisher Joost Hartgerts Dutch Subject Charles I, King of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland British 1649

Thomas Eakins American 1883

'Empress Catherine II of Russia made several unsuccessful attempts to organize military expeditions against Revolutionary France. Bare-breasted, she rides here atop a group of cowering world leaders and cries, "Return, you cowards, and I will make you all bite the dust...how I regret my poor rubles!" One of the monarchs turning away below states, "This sickness of the French will cost me my throne." Among the crowd are William Pitt, the chief minister of England, and the pope. All are under attack by the forces of the French Revolution across the way. Liberty stands atop a fortress mounted by three tiers of bare-bottomed deputies of the National Assembly - a literal reference to the sans-culottes (no-britches), the working-class radicals of the French Revolution. Liberty lights a cannon that fires into the rear of King Louis XVI and forces him to vomit vetoes. The rows of buttocks spew "Liberté" as well as "Ça ira," the refrain of a notorious Revolutionary song with lyrics including the phrase "We will hang the aristocrats." A large Prussian eagle attempting to shield the monarch with a crown apologizes, "But for these sans-culottes dogs, I would protect you."'

David Claypoole Johnston American Printer Pendleton's Lithography American 1830

Publisher T. W. Freeman American July 4, 1812

Engraver Joseph Napoleon Gimbrede American After John Trumbull American Subject Joseph Warren American 1840–77