United States Branch Bank, Wall Street

Charles W. Burton

1831 · Watercolor and graphite on off-white wove paper · The American Wing

Thompson was a leading exponent of Greek Revival--style architecture in New York during the first half of the nineteenth century. Here, however, in his earliest known design, the Greek influence is minimal. The two-story, seven-bay façade of the Branch Bank of the United States, its projecting center section capped by a pediment, directly follows in the mid-eighteenth-century English Palladian tradition. Only the Ionic capitals and some of the cornice moldings are of Greek inspiration. The building was located on the north side of Wall Street, between Nassau and William streets, and in the 1850s, it was converted into the United States Assay Office. It was demolished in 1915, but the façade was saved and reconstructed as the front of the Museum’s American Wing in 1924.

Artist

Charles W. Burton

Date

1831

Medium

Watercolor and graphite on off-white wove paper

Culture

American

Department

The American Wing

Credit line

Purchase, Robert G. Goelet Gift, 1979