Falls of the Passaic
William Guy Wall
American Art
The Irish-born William Guy Wall arrived in New York City in 1818 and quickly established himself as a successful landscapist. His watercolors often served as the basis for engraved reproductions that helped to popularize American landscape imagery. This work depicts a distant view of the seventy-foot-high waterfall on New Jersey’s Passaic River, a landmark renowned for its aesthetic beauty and awesome force (hydropowered manufacturing first developed along this river). In the English tradition, Wall applied layers of wash to capture reflections on the river, and he added human figures to provide scale to the scene.
MEDIUM
Transparent watercolor with touches of opaque watercolor over graphite on cream, moderately thick, moderately textured wove paper mounted to Japanese paper
DATES
ca. 1820
DIMENSIONS
17 3/8 x 24 in. (44.1 x 61 cm)
Frame: 28 x 36 x 1 1/2 in. (71.1 x 91.4 x 3.8 cm)
ACCESSION NUMBER
42.108
CREDIT LINE
Dick S. Ramsay Fund
MUSEUM LOCATION
This item is not on view
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