WESTCOTT, Thompson

Centennial Portfolio:

Philadelphia: Thomas Hunter, 1876. Item #06545

The Great Centennial Exhibition, Philadelphia 1876
A Superb Pictorial Record of America’s First World’s Fair

WESTCOTT, Thompson. Centennial Portfolio: A Souvenir of the International Exhibition at Philadelphia, Comprising Lithographic Views of Fifty of Its Principal Buildings, With Letter-Press Description. Philadelphia: Thomas Hunter, 1876.

Oblong quarto (7 3/16 x 11 inches). viii, 52 pp., plus map and fifty-two tinted lithographic plates.

Publisher’s three-quarter dark brown morocco over brown cloth beveled boards, covers ruled and decoratively stamped in gilt, front cover titled in gilt. Spine with four raised bands, decoratively ruled and lettered in gilt in compartments. Marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. A near fine and exceptionally clean example.

A handsome and evocative souvenir of the great Centennial Exposition, America’s first international world’s fair, held in Philadelphia to celebrate the centenary of the Declaration of Independence. This finely produced volume presents a rich visual survey of the Exhibition through fifty-two tinted lithographic plates, capturing the extraordinary range and ambition of the fair’s architecture and displays. The plates depict not only the principal monumental structures - Memorial Hall, Machinery Hall, and the vast Main Exhibition Building - but also a wide array of more specialized and often whimsical pavilions, including those representing individual American states, foreign nations, and commercial enterprises. Among the more memorable subjects are the Agricultural (cheese and butter) building, the Brewers’ exhibit, and the Singer Sewing Machine pavilion, alongside views of Independence Hall, anchoring the Exhibition within the symbolic landscape of American independence.

Accompanied by descriptive letterpress text, as well as a map of the fairgrounds and detailed floor plans, the work provides both a visual and documentary record of an event that marked the United States’ emergence as an industrial and cultural power on the world stage. The tinted lithography, at once precise and atmospheric, beautifully conveys the ornate, eclectic character of high Victorian exhibition architecture.

Preserved here in its original publisher’s morocco binding, this is an unusually well-kept example of a work often encountered worn, the plates fresh and the overall presentation notably crisp.

A striking and historically important pictorial record of one of the defining international exhibitions of the nineteenth century.

Price: $1,250.00