Oct 02, 2012 - Sale 2287

Sale 2287 - Lot 306

Unsold
Estimate: $ 6,000 - $ 9,000
BOSTON JUST BEFORE THE TEA PARTY (MASSACHUSETTS.) Newton, James, engraver; after William Pierie. A View of Boston Taken on the Road to Dorchester. Hand-colored engraving, 20 3/4 x 30 3/4; margins worn with several closed tears, two extending slightly into the image, cropped just below platemark on lower edge, three folds (two vertical and one horizontal), laid down on stiff paper. [London]: James F.W. des Barres, 30 May 1776
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Additional Details

This bucolic view of Boston was originally drawn by a British artillery officer in 1773, three years after the Boston Massacre and a few months before the Tea Party. It was published in 1776, two months after the British evacuation of the city, and a month before the Declaration of Independence.
The view was taken from Dorchester to the south, and shows Boston before its landscape was dramatically altered in the early 19th century. The city appears as a peninsula attached only by the narrow neck toward the foreground, and three hills still dominate the horizon, with Beacon Hill and its beacon tower the focal point of the view. Soon the hills would be leveled and used to expand the coastline. In the foreground left is the Shirley-Eustis House in Roxbury, still a local landmark.
This view was originally issued as part of the scarce Atlantic Neptune atlas, which generally brings more than $300,000 complete. Cresswell 497; Deák, Picturing America 132.