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McALLISTER Jr., John (collector). Album assembled

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Philadelphia: c. 1859. Folio (410 x 300 mm). 26 engraved plates, 16 photographs. Each mounted on one side only, many captioned by McAllister beneath the image. Manuscript listing by McAllister of the first forty on a folded sheet, tipped in. With an 8 pp. manuscript by McAllister discussing many of the images, laid in. Contemporary half calf over marbled paper boards, rebacked. Housed in a morocco-backed case. Provenance: Mrs. A. A. Auchincloss (gift inscription by John McAllister on the front free endpaper, dated November 1859); Martin P. Snyder. an amazing album of 19th century william birch restrikes and some of the earliest paper photographs produced in philadelphia. Includes the following plates by William Birch, most from his City of Philadelphia: 1) An Unfinished House, in Chestnut Street. 2) Back of the State House. 3) The New Theatre in Chesnut Street. 4) First Plate of Four Subjects. 5) High Street, with the First Presbyterian Church 6) Masonic Hall in Chesnut Street 7) Girard's Bank, late the Bank of the United States, in Third Street 8) Philadelphia Bank in Fourth Street Includes the following plates from William Birch's Country Seats: 9) Solitude in Pennsylva. 10) Landsdown the seat of the late Wm Bingham 11) Mendenhall Ferry 12) Montibello the Seat of Genl Smith 13) Mount Vernon 14) Sedgley the Seat of Mr. Wm Crammond 15) Devon in Pennsylva. 16) The Capitol at Washington [vignette to the title page to Country Seats] Other engravings: 17) Congressional Pugilists 18) Orphan Asylum ... Engd for the Port Folio 19) Strickland. Residence of the late Anthony Benezet 20) Wood. Major Genl Brown. 21) Lenhart. Sacred to the memory of the Hon.ble Philip Livingston 22) [Two views on one sheet showing 322 Spruce Street and the Associate Presbyterian Church] 23) A South East View of Christ Church 24) Peale. A NW View of the State House [engraved for the Columbian Magazine] 25) [Peale]. A View of the New Market from the Corner of Shippen & Second Streets [engraved for the Columbian Magazine] 26) Thomas Birch. View of the Dam and Waterworks at Fairmount. Photographs, salted paper prints from glass plates, titles as per manuscript captions unless bracketed: 27) Carpenter's Hall at the head of Carpenter's Court, Chesnut St. below 4th St. 232 x 178 mm. Attributed to Frederick Debourg Richards, May 1859. Looney 63; Finkel 75. 28) West side of Front St. below Walnut St. 205 x 168 mm. 29) North west corner of 4th and Prune [now Locust] St. 190 x 165 mm. 30) South west corner of Second and Chesnut Steets. 189 x 160 mm. Looney 115. 31) Free Quaker Meeting House at the south west corner if 5th and Arch Streets. 213 x 160 mm. 32) Some houses on the North side of Walnut St. above Third Street. 200 x 157 mm. 33) The Old Frame House at the Corner of Little Dock Street and Second street below Spruce Street. 190 x 162 mm. Attributed to Frederick Debourg Richards and John Betts, January 1854. Finkel 55. 34) Residence of Edward Penington North side of Race St between 4th & 5th Sts. 200 x 155 mm. 35) Residence of William Cramond, south west corner of Third and Spruce St. 200 x 150 mm. 36) House and Garden, corner of Fourth and Union Streets. 200 x 155 mm. Attributed to Frederick Debourg Richards, February 1859. 37) The old "Friend's Meeting House" Pine St below Second St. 192 x 136 mm. Looney 40. 38) South west corner of Market and Front Streets [London Coffee House]. 192 x 142 mm. 39) Mr. Young's Mansion at Rockland, Del. 145 x 200 mm, corners rounded. 40) [Front view of an unidentified house with a large veranda, with four gentleman and a horse in the foreground.] 194 x 150 mm, corners trimmed. 41) [Side view of the same house as above, dated in ink March 1860.] 195 x 148 mm. 42) [Residence of John McAllister, Jr., 14 N. Merrick St., with McAllister standing in front of his doorway, dated in ink March 1860.] 204 x 152 mm, corners rounded. John McAllister, Jr. (1786-1877) a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, joined his father's successful optical manufacturing and retail store in the early 19th century. A member of both the Library Company and the Philadelphia Aethaneum, McAllister became a noted antiquary who carefully preserved historical books, documents and maps relating to Philadelphia. The circumstances of his acquisition of a number of the original copperplates used for various editions of William Birch's City of Philadelphia and his Country Seats are not entirely clear, but are presumed by Snyder to have occurred in the late 1850s, with some coming to him via local bookseller and printer Robert Desilver. At roughly the same time, he began photographing and acquiring images of Philadelphia. Considering his avocation as an optician, the early development of photography in the 1840s certainly piqued his interest in the art form. "The McAllisters' opticians' shop supplied Philadelphia pioneer daguerreotypists with camera lenses and other optical equipment. McAllister himself claimed to have been the first customer in Robert Cornelius's daguerreotype studio when Cornelius opened his doors on May 6, 1840. McAllisters' shop carried a wide range of optical and photographic products and equipment, including camera lucidas, camera obscuras, magic lantern projectors and slides, and stereoscopes and stereoviews" (McAllister Graphics Collection, Library Company, January 2007). Interestingly, among the images here is a vivid Chestnut street scene that shows the McAllister store (image number 30 above). While the photographers of the above images are unidentified and largely unattributed, most were likely produced by Frederick De Bourg Richards and James McClees. Together, those photographers, among the earliest in Philadelphia to use printing out paper, documented the city in the mid-century. The present album comprises a wonderful confluence of both printed and photographed views of the city and taken together present a fantastic visual record of Philadelphia during the first half of the 19th century. While a similar album was given to the Library Company in 1886 by John A. McAllister (John McAllister, Jr.'s son), we could locate no other similar compilations. As for the photographic images, while holdings at the Library Company, the Free Library and other Philadelphia institutions are significant, those collections were largely formed a century ago and imagery from this pre-Civil War era almost never appears on the market. On the Birch restrikes, see Snyder, "William Birch: His Philadelphia Views" in PMHB, vol. 73, no. 3; regarding early photography in Philadelphia, see Robert F. Looney, Old Philadelphia in Early Photographs (New York: 1976) and Kenneth Finkel, Nineteenth Century Photography in Philadelphia (New York: 1980). [With:] Mounted albumen photograph of Associate Presbyterian Church with a printed caption. Laid into a pocket mounted to the rear pastedown of the above. And with other related material laid in.

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