View Near Fort Miller (No. 10 (later changed to No. 9) of The Hudson River Portfolio)

Text published with this print tells us that, "Fort Miller is a small village in the township of Argyle and Washington county; thirty-seven miles north of Albany, and thirteen south of Sandy-Hill...One of the characteristic beauties of the Hudson is, its varieties of islands, some stretching their lengthening and sinuous forms through the center of the channel, others creeping in all the grace of verdant loveliness, under the abrupt and lofty shores, and others lying on the surface of the waters like wooded knolls reposing on the bosom of an inland lake. Of the latter description there are several about Fort Miller, one of which the artist has judiciously introduced into his view." The print comes from the Hudson River Portfolio, a monument of American printmaking produced through the collaboration of artists, a writer, and publishers. In the summer of 1820, the Irish-born Wall toured and sketched along the Hudson, then painted a series of large watercolors. Prints of equal scale were proposed—to be issued to subscribers in sets of four—and John Rubens Smith hired to work the plates. Almost immediately, Smith was replaced by the skilled London-trained aquatint engraver John Hill, who finished the first four plates, and produced sixteen more by 1825. Over the next decade, the popularity of the Portfolio stimulated new appreciation for American landscape, and prepared the way for the Hudson River School.

Credit: The Edward W. C. Arnold Collection of New York Prints, Maps and Pictures, Bequest of Edward W. C. Arnold, 1954