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A VIEW OF EASTERN PENITENTIARY, PENNSYLVANIA,...

Currency:USD Category:Everything Else / Other Start Price:NA Estimated At:400.00 - 600.00 USD
A VIEW OF EASTERN PENITENTIARY, PENNSYLVANIA,...
A VIEW OF EASTERN PENITENTIARY, PENNSYLVANIA,
DATED 1855
American School, 19th
Unsigned. View identified in margin.
Watercolor on paper.
PROVENANCE:
Lot is accompanied by one volume: Laws Relating to Eastern State Penitentiary, Pennsylvania, 1829-1903, printed at the Eastern State Penitentiary, Philadelphia, Pa., 1904.
A typed note on verso of frame reads:
"This was probably painted by an inmate of the prison in 1855. He was No. 2954, Samuel Couperthwaite, a member of the Society of Friends. He was the engraver of the likeness of the prison so often seen in books....The prisoner was convicted of manslaughter in Philadelphia on May 27, 1848 and was pardoned August 7, 1849. He was again sent to the prison for second degree murder on December 3, 1852 to serve 7 years, 11 months. He was released on November 3, 1860. He was an umbrella maker by trade....The chaplain wrote in his journal of him, 'He belonged to one of the rowdy clubs of Skinner's, and his prevailing vice was intemperance and his predominant passion destructiveness.' "
$400-600