Quebec

New York: D. Appleton & Co, 1874. Steel engraving. 4to (12.¼" X 9"). Very good. Faint bit of age toning at edges. A sharp, attractive heavy stock steel engraving from the first edition (1872-74) of editor William Cullen Bryant's landmark "Picturesque America; Or, The Land We Live In. A Delineation by Pen and Pencil of the Mountains, Rivers, Lakes, Waterfalls, Shores, Canyons, Valleys, Cities, and Other Picturesque Features of Our Country," a hefty two-volume study of America's scenery in words and fine steel engraving considered highly influential to American tourism. "Quebec" was engraved by one of this work's most notable engravers, Robert Hinshelwood (b. 1812), a Scottish-born artist remembered for his landscapes, based on a painting by noted landscape artist and illustrator John Douglas Woodward (1846-1924). This delightful cityscape shows a rural foreground, the Saint Lawrence River laden with rowboats, steamboats and sailboats of every size in the middle ground and a large city loming up on the hills and bluffs on the far side, extending almost to the horizon, where mountains are faintly visible in the distance. Most of the engravings were printed on regular text-weight stock, and a much smaller number (such as this example) on a fine, heavy stock.