1761 London Magazine View of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (after George Heap)

This is a superb example of the 1761 London Magazine edition of the famous Heap and Scull view of Philadelphia, one of the earliest acquirable and most important views of the city. It presents a panoramic view of Philadelphia as seen from the New Jersey shore of the Delaware River. George Heap was commissioned to draw this view by Pennsylvania luminary Thomas Penn, who had been impressed by William Burgis' 1719 and 1725 engravings of New York and Boston and wished to see his own city so immortalized. Heap's sudden death upon completion of his drawing inspires the romantic notion that the masterwork was so demanding that the labor brought on his illness, although in truth it is not known what caused his sudden decline.

A Grand Panorama

The prospect spans from South Street to Vine Street, and is centered on the spire of Christ Church (numbers keyed to the Magazine's text mark the locations of the city's various churches, government houses, the Academy, and various visible major streets). Also prominently shown is the city's corn mill, situated on the upstream end of 'Windmill Island'. (This island was removed from the river in 1890, considered an impediment to navigation.) In the upper right is a view of the city's defensive battery, whose construction in 1740 was funded by Benjamin Franklin's Association for Defense. In the upper left is pictured Philadelphia's state house, which in a matter of years would come to be known as Independence Hall.

Precursors to this View

The view is based on George Heap's masterful, grand drawing of the city, published by Nicholas Scull in London in 1754, two years after the artist's untimely death. (The large 1754 view is extremely rare and commands astonishing sums.) Scull and Heap also collaborated on the influential Map of Philadelphia and Parts Adjacent, which was published in 1752 and frequently reissued.

Publication History and Census

The present view was engraved by an anonymous hand in 1761 for inclusion in the London Magazine. We see only one example of this view cataloged in OCLC, at the National Library of Scotland. It appears on the market from time to time.