Calyo, Nicolino. View of New York City as It Appeared on the Eve of the Fire, 1835. 1835.

Nicolino Calyo

View of New York City as It Appeared on the Eve of the Fire, 1835

Gouache on paper

Signed, dated, and inscribed at (l.r.): 'View of the City of New York as it appeared on the evening of the fire 16th Dec 1835 from the mill at Brooklyn'; (at l.r.): 'From N. Calyo. 402. Broadway N. York'.

20" x 27 1/2" visible, 28 3/8" x 36 1/2" framed

This striking original watercolor of New York is the work of Nicolino Calyo, a talented immigrant artist who captured a unique view of the city during one of the most epochal events of the nineteenth century. In his View of New York as It Appeared on the Eve of the Fire, 1835, the artist rendered the blaze in Manhattan from the shoreline in Brooklyn. The sky is drenched a dramatic red as the fire licks the night sky. A handful of spectators crowd at the water's edge and beneath the windmill at the right, watching the devastation. Although volunteer fire companies promptly arrived at the scene of the blaze on the night of December 16th, 1835, New York was gripped by the coldest weather recorded in decades. The firemen were virtually powerless as their water supplies and horses froze in the sub-zero climate. The fire, which began at a dry goods establishment of Comstock and Andrews at 25 Mercer (now Beaver) Street, raged out of control for fifteen hours. In its wake, nearly the whole of the First Ward of Manhattan, the heart of New York’s commercial, financial, and civic district, was consumed.

References: Patterson, Margaret Sloane: ‘Nicolino Calyo and His Paintings of the Great Fire of New York, December 16th and 17th, 1835,” The American Art Journal, XIV (Spring 1982), pp. 4-22.1837