The Reverse of the Great Seal of the United States.

• Price: $225.00
  

  SKU: 91453

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• ARTIST:

• PUBLISHER: Published by the Columbian Magazine, Philadelphia.

• MEDIUM: Evgraving,

  DATE: 1786.

• EDITION SIZE: Image size 6 3/8 x 3 3/4" (16.3 x 9.5 cm).

• DESCRIPTION: Engraved by James Trenchard. "A pyramid unfinished. - In the zenith, an eye in a triangle, surrounded with a glory, proper, Over the eye, the words - Annuit Coeptis: on the base of the pyramid, the numeral letters - M.DCC.LXXVI: and underneath the following motto or exergue - Novus Ordo Seclorum." JT Sculp." "The Columbian Magazine, or Monthly Miscellany...", was published in Philadelphia in the years 1786-90. In 1786, for the first two issues of Columbian Magazine, Philadelphia engraver James Trenchard wrote articles on the obverse (in September 1786) and reverse (in October 1786) of the Great Seal, and each issue included a full-page engraving of his own original version of the discussed side of the seal. The project apparently was aided by William Barton, as the official law was printed along with supplemental notes from Barton. Trenchard's obverse featured randomly placed stars, like Thomson's drawing, and had the rays of the glory extending beyond the clouds upward, with the clouds themselves being in an arc. The reverse also followed the blazon carefully, and featured an elongated pyramid with the requisite mottos and the Eye of Providence (a right eye, unlike versions that followed). While not official, Trenchard's depiction had an obvious influence on subsequent official versions, and was the first known public rendering of the reverse side.

• ADDITIONAL INFO:

• CONDITION: Overall good condition.

• REFERENCE: The American Revolution in Drawings and prints. Cresswell/Hitchings, 1975. #884.

• CATEGORIES: 20th-21st Century Subjects , Historical