Amusing winter genre scene showing several individuals enjoying the frozen river as a place for recreation, travel, and as a place of observation for the February 12, 1831 solar eclipse. In the foreground, several ice skaters, predominately men, skate, perform tricks, and fall. One of the fallen includes an African American man, lying on his back, his hat on the ice near a dog playing with a ball. In the right of the image, a vendor serves beverages from a refreshment stand. In the background, several others skate, ride and pull sleds, or enjoy a horse-drawn sleigh ride., Philadelphia on Stone, POS 696, Historical Society of Pennsylvania: Bb 07 S 17, LCP exhibit catalogue: Made in America, entry #44, Smithsonian, Harry T. Peters Collection: DL*60.3655. Copy hand-colored., Trimmed.
Panoramic and bustling, winter view showing several men, women, and children, on the ice-covered river. In the center foreground, a small crowd gathers around a man reading a newspaper as around them, throngs of individuals traverse the frozen walkway, promenade as couples, make conversation, and fall, laugh, and grab one another as they slip on the ice. Several men skate, boys sled, dogs chase each other, and children frolic, including a pair retrieving a hat from a broken patch of ice. Others peddle refreshments from a table and flee from broken ice as ruffians engage in a fist fight. The cityscape of Philadelphia is visible in the background, including Christ Church and Independence Hall in addition to Spark's Shot Tower and Girard College. Also shows the frozen channel running through Windmill Island covered in barren trees in the far left of the image., Copyrighted by A.A. Dugan., Philadelphia on Stone, POS 165, Historical Society of Pennsylvania: Bc 72 R 815, Dugan was a Philadelphia engraver.
Date
c1852
Location
Historical Society of Pennsylvania HSP Bc 72 R 815
