The Library Company and Free Library unpack their treasures for two must-see exhibits!

Detail from William Russell Birch’s hand-colored engraving, “Bank of Pennsylvania, South Second Street Philadelphia, Designed & Published by W. Birch Enamel Painter 1804” at the Library Company of Philadelphia.

Detail from William Russell Birch’s hand-colored engraving, “Bank of Pennsylvania, South Second Street Philadelphia, Designed & Published by W. Birch Enamel Painter 1804.”

Before photography offered a new way to record venerable buildings in historic cities — think of Eugene Atget’s photos of ancient Paris or Berenice Abbott’s 20th-century shots of vanishing old New York — painters and engravers had this occupation all to themselves. Read on…

Author: Edith Newhall, For The Inquirer