Medium: Copper Engraving
Support: Paper
Artist: After Charles Canda
Artist Dates: 1824-1840
Country of Origin: United States
Title & Description: "General Society of Merchants and Tradesmen"This copper engraving was made to be a certificate of proof of membership for Brewster Maverick. This print depicts a plate on which a scene is framed by an oval. The bottom hemisphere of the oval has 42 stars, separated by an eagle half-covered by a wax seal. The top hemisphere of the oval has the phrase "To dry the tear from misery's eye, to succour the afflicted and to save the sinking is our aim" written across it. Within the oval are two men, both dressed in fineries, offering their assistance to a woman and her three children. In the clouds above them, and the river-front street they are on, is a muscular arm flexing while holding a craftsman's hammer. At the corners of the oval are child-like angels each performing a different craft - architecture, farming, chronology, and sculpting.
Signature: No
Date of Work: 1878
Frame: None
Work Size: 20.0x25.5"
Frame Size: N/A
Weight: 1lbs 2.8oz
Provenance: New York Estate
Condition: The edges of the paper on which the engraving print is printed on are quite worn with residual adhesive discoloring it. The lamination that covers the piece has torn just to the left of the bottom center, leaving a small hole in the framing paper about a quarter by a half inch in size.
Artist Biography: Unavailable