Snapshots of the Past

The City and Port of Philadelphia, on the River Delaware from Kensington – Antique Wall Art

The City and Port of Philadelphia, on the River Delaware from Kensington, 1800 — antique engraving
The City and Port of Philadelphia, on the River Delaware from Kensington, 1800. Antique engraving from the Philadelphia collection.

(Originally scanned by the Library of Congress. Each image is professionally and digitally cleaned of artifacts such as color bars and extra borders prior to printing.)

Description

Few images capture their era like this antique engraving of The City and Port of Philadelphia, on the River Delaware from Kensington. It comes from the collections of the Library of Congress, scanned from the original and carefully restored.

Choose the framed print, ready to hang the day it arrives, or the unframed print for a frame of your own. A conversation-starting piece for home, office, or as a meaningful gift. Free shipping in the lower 48 states. Snapshots of the Past has been bringing history to the wall since 2001, for tens of thousands of customers worldwide.

The City and Port of Philadelphia, on the River Delaware from Kensington

Order a print

Secure checkout · SSL encryptedPowered by Stripe and PayPal

Free shipping in the lower 48 states. The checkout page shows the picture, size and price before you pay.

Sign up for our newsletter

Sent securely. No purchase needed. Unsubscribe anytime.

Ask about licensing or this print

From Kensington, on the opposite bank of the Delaware, the view takes in the river and the port that gave Philadelphia its commercial life. William Birch and Son issued it as the frontispiece to their 1800 book on the city, and it appears again as plate 2 in the same work. Birch, an English-born engraver who settled in Philadelphia in 1794, built a reputation on carefully detailed views of American towns. Hand-colored by the printmakers, this engraving shows how the waterfront shaped the city's growth in the early republic.

Created / published1800
Medium1 print : engraving, hand-colored.
NotesFrontispiece by Wm. Birch and Son. Illus. in: The City of Philadelphia..., 1800, plate 2. Ref. This record contains unverified, old data from caption card.
SourceLibrary of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
Original scan1,464 × 1,225 px · prints to 5 × 4 in at 300 dpi
ReferenceAMZ-SOTP-HPA-176064

More from the Philadelphia collection

Snapshots of the Past helps heritage brands, museums, historians and storytellers tell stories with history: historic prints, image licensing and historical storytelling drawn from more than 25 years of research and curation.

Related pictures

Philadelphia. From fair mount looking down the river SchuylkillPhiladelphia. From fair mount looking down the river SchuylkillThe City of PhiladelphiaThe City of PhiladelphiaRinging out liberty, July 8, 1776, Philadelphia, home city of the Pennsylvania RailroadRinging out liberty, July 8, 1776, Philadelphia, home city of the Pennsylvania R[Night view of Broad Street with lit tower of City Hall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania][Night view of Broad Street with lit tower of City Hall, Philadelphia, Pennsylva[City Hall, Philadelphia, Pa.: Tower][City Hall, Philadelphia, Pa.: Tower][Philadelphia City Hall, Philadelphia, Pa.; exterior, elevated view][Philadelphia City Hall, Philadelphia, Pa.; exterior, elevated view]