Hanington's Dioramic Representation of the Great Fire in New York, Dec. 16 and 17, 1835. Now Exhibiting with Other Moving Dioramic Scenes, at the American Museum Every Evening...

Hanington's Dioramic Representation of the Great Fire in New York, Dec. 16 and 17, 1835. Now Exhibiting with Other Moving Dioramic Scenes, at the American Museum Every Evening...

H. Sewell

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

New York has suffered many terrible fires, with one of the worst breaking out on December 16, 1835. Coals from a stove ignited a broken gas line in the commercial district south of Wall Street, and the resulting flames, fanned by high winds, proved uncontrollable. Over two days, 674 buildings were lost across seventeen blocks. This print advertises a diorama mounted at the American Museum in 1836 that allowed visitors to relive one of the disaster’s most dramatic moments—the collapse of the Merchants’ Exchange, a marble building that was supposedly fireproof. Within a year, five hundred new buildings had been erected and much of the devastated area restored and improved, demonstrating the city’s economic strength and incessant demand for real estate.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Hanington's Dioramic Representation of the Great Fire in New York, Dec. 16 and 17, 1835. Now Exhibiting with Other Moving Dioramic Scenes, at the American Museum Every Evening...Hanington's Dioramic Representation of the Great Fire in New York, Dec. 16 and 17, 1835. Now Exhibiting with Other Moving Dioramic Scenes, at the American Museum Every Evening...Hanington's Dioramic Representation of the Great Fire in New York, Dec. 16 and 17, 1835. Now Exhibiting with Other Moving Dioramic Scenes, at the American Museum Every Evening...Hanington's Dioramic Representation of the Great Fire in New York, Dec. 16 and 17, 1835. Now Exhibiting with Other Moving Dioramic Scenes, at the American Museum Every Evening...Hanington's Dioramic Representation of the Great Fire in New York, Dec. 16 and 17, 1835. Now Exhibiting with Other Moving Dioramic Scenes, at the American Museum Every Evening...

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.