View of New Orleans (Engraving)
From Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia
Artist/Maker: John L. Boqueta de Woiseri (active in America 1797-1815)[1]
Created: 1804
Origin/Purchase: New Orleans
Materials: colored aquatint
Dimensions: 29.5 x 54.5 (11 5/8 x 21 7/16 in.)
Location: Dining Room
Provenance: The Historic New Orleans Collection
Accession Number: 1958.42
Historical Notes: A View of New Orleans and its companion plan celebrated the acquisition of New Orleans by the United states. The print was dedicated to Jefferson, the engineer of the 1803 Louisiana Purchase that more than doubled the size of the United States and also prevented a potential war with France over port rights at the mouth of the Mississippi River.[2]
While negotiations were still under way, Jefferson sent out queries about the Louisiana Territory to government officials in the area requesting maps and graphic representations of the region. The lack of available images may have encouraged Boqueta de Woiseri to undertake his painting of the view from Marigny's estate and its companion piece, a plan of the city. Both were advertised by de Woiseri in the February 21, 1804 General Advertiser.[3] These engravings (now missing), the only ones available, were probably those listed by Jefferson in his Catalogue of Paintings. They hung on the lower tier in the Dining Room.[4]
Footnotes
- ↑ This article is based on Stein, Worlds, 186.
- ↑ Wendy Shadwell, American Printmaking: the First 150 Years (New York: Museum of Graphic Art, 1969), 48.
- ↑ Ibid.; Jesse Poesch, Art in the Old South (New York: Knopf, 1983), 180-182.
- ↑ Catalogue.
Further Sources
- Louisiana State University Board of Trustees. "A View of New Orleans taken from the plantation of Marigny." Louisiana Digital Library. http://louisdl.louislibraries.org/u?/LPH,333
