Sep 30, 2021 - Sale 2580

Sale 2580 - Lot 191

Price Realized: $ 1,875
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,200 - $ 1,800
(NEW YORK CITY.) Alfred R. Waud, artist. Wall Street Ferry. Pen and ink on cream wove paper, 19 3/4 x 26 1/2 inches, titled, dated, and signed "A. Waud fec." at lower right; moderate toning, tipped along top edge to later stiff paper. New York, 1855

Additional Details

The illustrator Alfred R. Waud (1828-1891) was born in England and came to the United States in 1850; he later gained renown for Harper's Weekly illustrations during the Civil War.

This view of a busy waterfront scene on Wall Street was apparently never published. The street was already a major commercial center in downtown Manhattan, and the setting for Melville's classic 1853 short story "Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street," but was decades away from hosting the New York Stock Exchange and the Wall Street Journal. In the background at center is the 1853 Wall Street Ferry building, with a crowd lined up to wait for transport to Brooklyn.