[City Hall, New York]
Marcus Ormsbee began his career as a photographer in New York City in the 1840s. He was primarily active as a portraitist but, as in this work, also made elegant city views rich in urban detail. Alongside the ghostly shadows of itinerant merchants and their customers sits a root beer vendor's wagon-a welcome sight for pedestrians on a hot summer afternoon. City Hall (Mangan and McComb, 1812) looms large, overwhelming the human activity yet proposing itself as a fine amalgam of the French Renaissance and more homegrown Colonial influences.
Artwork Details
- Title: [City Hall, New York]
- Artist: Marcus Ormsbee (American, active 1840s–60s)
- Date: 1862
- Medium: Albumen silver print
- Dimensions: Image: 23.5 x 33.2 cm (9 1/4 x 13 1/16 in.)
- Classification: Photographs
- Credit Line: Gift of Charles Schwartz, 2003
- Object Number: 2003.579.5
- Curatorial Department: Photographs
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