A View of Fort George with the City of New York from the Southwest

John Carwitham's engraved view of Fort George depicts the southern tip of Manhattan Island as it appeared in the early 1730s. Almost certainly the view originated from a drawing by the English immigrant artist William Burgis (active 1717–1730s) since the right half of the print showing the fort and the large ship in the foreground replicates a mezzotint that Burgis dedicated to John Montgomerie, the colonial governor of New York. King George II appointed Montgomerie in 1728, but he governed only a few years before dying in 1731 during a small pox epidemic. The view is one of the earliest depicting New York from the west with the broad Hudson River in the foreground.

 

Although the print has been trimmed, cutting off publisher information under the title, it is almost certainly a later printing by the publisher Carrington Bowles of London, dating after 1764.