Niagara Falls Horseshoe Fall (from the Canada side) 20

NIAGARA FALLS [printed at top]; Drawn from nature by Aug. Kollner [printed below image, left]; New-York & Paris, published by Goupil, Vibert & Co. | 20 | HORSESHOE FALL | (from the Canada side.) | Entered according to act of congress, in the year 1848, by Aug. Kollner, in the clerk's office of the district court for the southern district of New-York. [printed below image, center]; Lith. by Deroy. Printed by Cattier. [printed below image, right]

This lovely lithograph of Horseshoe Fall, with Terrapin Tower in the distance at left. Goupil, Vibert & Co. published a set of 54 of Kollner's views of American cities, including eight prints of Niagara. A finely observed view of one of the great natural wonders of the world. An excellent image from Köllner's highly important series Views of American Cities (New York and Paris, 1848-1851). This series of 54 plates was commissioned from Köllner by Goupil, Vibert and Company and was issued both coloured and uncoloured.

Born in Württemburg in 1812, Köllner's first recorded work was when he was hired at the age of sixteen by the Stuttgart printer Carl Ebner to work on portfolios of etchings of horses and other animals. He came to America in 1839 and settled in Washington briefly, before moving to Philadelphia in 1840 where he lived and worked for the next 60 years. The present print is from what was probably his most important commission and certainly brought him to the attention of the art-buying public. Köllner's body of topographic work "makes a distinct contribution to the documentation of the nineteenth-century American scene" (Deak p.334).

Cf. Deak 560; J. Harper Early Painters and Engravers in Canada p.183; Spendlove The Face of Early Canada p.72. Peters, p. 254-55.