The Traveler's First View of New York—The Battery and Flagstaff
1811–ca. 1813
Medium
Watercolor and ink on white wove paper
Dimensions
6 3/16 x 8 7/8 in. (15.7 x 22.5 cm)
Classification
Watercolor
Culture
American
Department
The American Wing
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Rogers Fund, 1942
Accession Number
42.95.3
Tags
Art Historical Context
Imagine arriving in New York Harbor around 1811, your first glimpse of America's bustling young republic unfolding before you. That's the magic captured in *The Traveler's First View of York—The Battery and Flag* by Pavel Petrovich Sin, a Russian diplomat artist who visited the United States from 1811 to 1813. This intimate watercolor and ink on paper (6 3/16 x 8 7/8 in.) depicts the Battery, Manhattan's southern tip—a former fortification turned promenade—with its prominent flagstaff symbolizing national pride amid ships and cityscape. Created during a pivotal era when New York was emerging ...
About the Artist
Pavel Petrovich Svinin · 1787–1839
Pavel Petrovich Svinin (1787–1839) was a Russian diplomat, writer, and amateur artist whose visual record of early American life constitutes one of the most vivid and historically valuable documentary accounts of the United States in the early nineteenth century. Born in Russia in 1787, Svinin received a broad education and pursued a career in the Russian foreign service, which brought him to the ...