Author: Basire, [J.]
Title: La cataracte de Niagara. [View of Niagara Falls].
Description: France, not published, 1783. (19.2 x 12.6 visible). Original pen and ink drawing. In larger, French passepartout (30.2 x 23.5 cm). = Captioned La cataracte de Niagara, Basire f[ecit]; and, in a different old hand, to 3. p. 210. Signed in lower left margin, dated "mars 1783" in lower right margin. To the right the scenery is rather mountainous - far more so than in reality. The British artist James Basire the Elder (1730-1802) is known as a painter, etcher and engraver. Chiefly working as an engraver, he showed himself to be an accomplished original artist too (see Goddard). Although Basire travelled abroad, e.g., to France and Italy, he never visited North America, which may explain the free interpretation of the Niagara Falls surroundings. The reference added may refer to Crevecoeur's Voyage dans le Haute Pensylvanie et dans l'état de New-York (1801), but his illustrations of the Falls, by Bonfois, are in fact quite different. Goddard, R. (2016) "Drawing on Copper" The Basire Family of Copper-Plate Engravers and their Works p. 139, fig. 31. No printed edition listed in Dow (1921), Anthology and Bibliography of Niagara Falls.

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