View from My Work Room Window in Hammond Street, New York City
ca. 1826–30
Medium
Watercolor, pen and black ink, and graphite on off-white wove paper
Dimensions
9 7/8 x 13 3/4 in. (25.1 x 34.9 cm)
Classification
Watercolor
Culture
American
Department
The American Wing
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
The Edward W. C. Arnold Collection of New York Prints, Maps, and Pictures, Bequest of Edward W. C. Arnold, 1954
Accession Number
54.90.283 recto
Tags
Art Historical Context
John Hill’s “View from My Work Room Window in Hammond Street, New York City” (ca. 1826–30) offers a rare, intimate glimpse of Manhattan’s early nineteenth-century neighborhoods. Looking out across modest brick and wooden houses, the artist records the modest scale and quiet rhythm of daily life before the city’s dramatic expansion. Created from his own studio window, the watercolor captures a moment when New York was still a compact port town rather than the towering metropolis we know today. Hill combines delicate watercolor washes with precise pen-and-ink lines and graphite underdrawing, a ...