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Estimate: $ 20,000 - $ 30,000
JOSHUA H. BEAL (active 1860s-1870s) "Beal's Panoramic View of New York." A monumental 5-part panorama from the Brooklyn Bridge Tower depicting Lower Manhattan. 1876. Albumen prints, the overall image measuring 10¼x88¾ inches (26x225.4 cm.), the mount 14⅛x92⅜ inches (35.9x234.6 cm.).
Provenance New York Bound Bookshop; to the Present Owner in 1986
Beal's view of New York City was shot in January 1876, after the photographer carried his heavy camera equipment, glass plate negatives, and tripod up the thirty flights of stairs in the Brooklyn Tower of the bridge. Beal exposed five negatives to create a composite photograph measuring more than seven feet long. The images provided a never-before-seen sweeping panorama of lower Manhattan's landmarks and commercial activity along the East River, including commercial signage and the four- and five-story buildings that then created the urban fabric of Lower Manhattan.
In the distance it is possible to find landmarks such as Trinity Church, the Western Union Building, St. Paul's Chapel, the new Post Office, and the Tribune Building (this building and Western Union buildings were the first "sky scrapers" in the city, towering at 10 stories and among the first to employ an elevator). Dominating the scene is the massive Manhattan Tower of the Brooklyn Bridge, which was completed in 1883.
Very few examples of this monumental image have survived. The collections of the New York Public Library, New York Historical Society, and the Library of Congress each hold a complete example, and we know of two complete and one three-part view in private hands.
ReproducedNew York, An Illustrated History, 170-71.
