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View of Belfast From Roger’s Hill, 1853.
Boston: Tappan & Bradford Lithography, 1853. Hand-colored lithograph, 14.5 x 29 inches, plus margins. A fine and very scarce lithographic view of Belfast and Belfast Harbor, after Maine artist George Swift. “Waldo County’s seat and principal port, Belfast was incorporated as a city in 1853 with 5,000 residents. When George H. Swift drew a view of Belfast from Roger’s Hill on the east side of the Passagassawakeag River, the local Republican Journal urged residents to subscribe for a copy at two dollars each for ‘the opportunity afforded them of seeing our beautiful city on paper.’ The subscription was a success, and the Boston lithography firm of Tappan and Bradford produced the print in both tinted and colored states. View of Belfast From Roger’s Hill provides a panorama of the city that John Hayward described as “beautifully situated on Belfast Bay with a very good harbor and anchorage for a great number of vessels of the largest class” in his 1853 Gazetteer of the United States. Swift, a Brunswick portrait painter, also created the drawing for an 1854 lithograph of Rockland” (Maine’s Lithographic Landscapes: Town and City Views, 1830-1870 at bowdoin.edu/art-museum). Ebenezer Tappan (1815–1854) was born in Manchester, New Hampshire, the son of Sally Hooper and Colonel Ebenezer Tappan, a merchant and manufacturer. Beginning in 1837, Tappan worked as a bank note and letterhead engraver in Boston, until forming a partnership with L. H. Bradford in late 1848 or early 1849. Lithographer Lodowick Harrington Bradford (1820–1885) was born in Boston and operated an engraving business there from 1845 to 1848. His partnership with Tappan lasted until the Tappan’s death in 1854, after which Bradford continued as an engraver and lithographer under the name L. H. Bradford & Co., which existed from 1854 to 1859. While it is unclear if Bradford had any other partners, engraver George Girdler Smith is known to have worked for Bradford in the late 1850s, and was also a partner in various lithography firms associated with printing innovations and producing scientific illustrations. L. H. Bradford & Co. also produced scientific and other book illustrations, as well as views, maps, plans, and sheet music covers. Bradford’s best known prints are Fitz Henry Lane's largest and most successful lithographs, View of Gloucester, Mass. (ca. 1855) and Castine, from Hospital Island (1855). In 1856, Bradford began working with the Boston photographer James Ambrose Cutting to create a photolithographic process, concentrating mainly on photolithography for the rest of his career. He died in Gloucester, Mass. in 1885. REFERENCES: Reps 1185; Maine’s Lithographic Landscapes: Town and City Views, 1830-1870 at bowdoin.edu/art-museum; Pierce, Sally and Catharina Slautterback. Boston Lithography, 1825-1880 (Boston, 1991), pp. 128-130, 155. CONDITION: Good, sky toned, minor stains and discoloration in margins.
Item #6258
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