View Near Sandy Hill (No. 7 of The Hudson River Portfolio)
Etcher John Hill American, born England
after William Guy Wall Irish
Publisher Henry J. Megarey American
Not on view
Sandy Hill (now Hudson Falls), sits on the river's east bank three miles below Glens Falls [see 54.90.1274(6)]. The accompanying text emphasizes the vista's placidity when compared to "the rude and solitary grandeur of the Highlands" to the south, and "the scarcely less bold character of the mountainous regions of Luzerne" [upriver]...The fall of the water, in this place, is very diminutive, although sufficient to keep the mills in operation which speculative industry has erected upon it [and]...the country around affords a number of romantic situations and interesting promenades." 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.
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