(REVOLUTION PRELUDE) Bufford lithographer; after Champney B

Sale 2564 - Lot 17

Price Realized: $ 5,500

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000

(REVOLUTION--PRELUDE.) Bufford, lithographer; after Champney. Boston Massacre, March 5th 1770. Chromolithograph, 22 x 27 3/4 inches; skillfully repaired 4-inch closed tear in margin and sky, minor edge wear, light mat toning, laid down on modern paper. Boston: Henry Q. Smith, 1856

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Issued as the abolition movement was reaching its peak, this composition places Crispus Attucks front and center in this seminal moment in the nation's founding. Armed only with a club, he is about to be run through by a British soldier's bayonet. Champney's 1855 drawing, though created more than 80 years after the event, was the first image to acknowledge the historical fact of Attucks at the massacre. While the background is largely faithful to Paul Revere's depiction, here the colonists are engaging directly with the British rather than being gunned down at a distance. See Tom Gearty in "Acquired Tastes: 200 Years of Collecting for the Boston Athenaeum," pages 296-8.