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Digital Paxton: Digital Collection, Critical Edition, and Teaching Platform

Art

	We have featured a small selection of art with Digital Paxton essays. We have currently digitized 22 engravings, maps, paintings, photographs, and postcards arranged chronologically in the path below "Contents."

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Presentation medal with the bust of King George II on the obverse and, on the reverse, a Quaker holding a peace pipe at a council fire with an Indian. Duffield, a clockmaker, engraved the die; the silversmith Richardson struck it. It was the first peace medal made in America. Benjamin Franklin and members of the Friendly Association would distribute these medals to Native Americans as tokens of goodwill. Inscription: "LET US LOOK TO THESE MOST HIGH WHO BLESSED OUR FATHERS WITH PEACE. 1757."
Commissioned by Thomas Penn, son of Pennsylvania's founder, this painting depicts a legendary meeting between William Penn and members of the Lennie Lenape tribe at Shackamaxon on the Delaware River. Honoring his patron's and his own Quaker heritage, West employed a Neoclassical style to suggest both visual and political harmony. By depicting the three factions that shaped Pennsylvania for most of the eighteenth century - Native Americans, Quakers, and merchants - united in the act of settlement, West created a powerful symbol of peace. Although the scene is allegorical rather than historical, the image has become an icon of American history.Benjamin West was the first American-born artist to earn acclaim outside his homeland. West was born in Springfield (now Swarthmore), Pennsylvania, and his early artistic promise encouraged Philadelphia's leading citizens to finance his training in Rome. Subsequently, in 1763 West traveled to London and never returned to the Colonies. His acclaim as a painter of historical scenes attracted the attention of King George III. West was appointed official history painter to the king and was a founder and later was elected president of the Royal Academy. Well aware that, as an American, he was a novelty, West used this mystique to his advantage, claiming that he had learned color mixing from Native Americans. He greatly contributed to American art in his role as teacher and advisor to the many early American artists who came to London to study with him.
View showing the house, also known as the Robert Morris House, built circa 1767-1768 at 526-530 Market Street, resided in by the president during construction of the executive mansion on Ninth Street. The walled garden adjacent the residence and the neighboring Sheaff's Wine Store (512 Market) are also visible. Includes pedestrian traffic of two men with canes. The residence burned in 1780 and was demolished in 1803. View showing the barracks built in 1757 in Northern Liberties for the quartering of British soldiers. Infantrymen drill across from a soldier presiding over a cannon in the courtyard of the buildings. The Barracks extended between Second, Third, Tammany, and Green streets and were razed soon after the American Revolution. Plate published in John F. Watson's Annals of Philadelphia...(Philadelphia: E.L. Carey & A. Hart, 1830), opp. p. 361. Residence view reproduced in Edward Lawler Jr.'s "The President's House In Philadelphia: The Rediscovery of a Lost Landmark." Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography (January 2002), pp. 5-95.
Events in Indian history: beginning with an account of the origin of the American Indians, and early settlements in North America, and embracing concise biographies of the principal chiefs and head-sachems of the different Indian tribes, with narratives and captivities ... also an appendix containing the statistics of the population of the U. States, and an Indian vocabulary. Illustrated with eight fine engravings.
Print after the Benjamin West painting (1771) showing the treaty made at the village of Shackamaxon (i.e. Penn Treaty Park, Kensington) on the Delaware River. Penn, surrounded by his delegates, negotiates with the Delaware Indian chief near a giant elm tree. Crates of goods are sat upon and displayed by the English delegation. Native Americans, including a translator and a woman breast-feeding her baby, participate in and watch the negotiations. Also shows brick residences being built in the background. River depicted on left.
Paxton Presbyterian Church, Paxtang, Harrisburg, Pa. Congregation formed around 1732. This building erected 1740 is the oldest Presbyterian church in continuous use in Pennsylvania. An historic spot closely identified with early Colonial history and the American Revolution. Chapel erected in 1905, enlarged 1923. Marker shows location of early log church. Postcard produced by the Albertype Company, which operated between 1890 and 1952.