View, New York City, Harbor Scene, Klinckowstrom and Akrell, Antique Print, 1824

Description

Baron Axel Leonhard Klinckowström was a Swedish naval officer, artist and writer who served his government in America from 1818 to 1820 on a special mission to study and make drawings of the recently invented American steamboat. In addition to preparing formal and technical reports for the government, he also wrote a series of impressions of American society in the form of letters to the Swedish public. These were published in 1824 as Bref om de Forente Staterne, two volumes of text accompanied by a third volume of pictures, charts and maps, including 19 views of New York, Washington, and Philadelphia. A nobleman as well as a lieutenant-colonel in the Swedish fleet, he was highly literate and perceptive. These writings were translated into English and published in the US in 1952. A reviewer praised the translation as “a valuable source for the study of early American life.”

Carl Fredrik Akrell (sometimes spelled Akrel) was a Swedish engraver especially known for his skill as a draftsman, engraver and aquatintist. Although his father was also an engraver, Akrell originally worked as a surveyor and engineer and had a long and distinguished career as a military officer. He was knighted after being injured in the Battle of Leipzig during the Napoleonic Wars and eventually attained the rank of major general. As an engraver, he is known for his excellent maps and the aquatint engravings in Thersner’s Fordna och present Sweden, Le Chevalier’s Journey to the Propontide and the Black Sea, and Axel Leonhard Klinckowström’s Bref om de Forente Staterne. His works are in the collections of the Kalmar Art Museum, National Museum in Stockholm, and Uppsala University Library.

Full publication information lower margin: Rit. af Klinckowström. Gr. af Akrell.

Condition: Generally very good, with fine color and large margins; recently professionally cleaned and deacidified with light remaining toning, wear, handling. Vertical center fold as issued.

References:

Bénézit, E. Dictionnaire critique et documentaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs et Graveurs. France: Librairie Gründ, 1966. Vol. 1, p. 66.

Bjork, Kenneth. “Review of Baron Klinkowström’s America, 1818-1820, by F. D. Scott.” Scandinavian Studies, Vol. 26, No. 1, 1954, pp. 38–42. JSTOR: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40916542. (27 October 2023).

“Carl Fredrik Akrell.” Wikipedia. 26 January 2023. https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Fredrik_Akrell (27 October 2023).

Deák, Gloria Gilda. Picturing America. Princeton University Press: 1989. 322. (26 October 2023).