Illustration for Old New York Coffee Houses; Theophylact Bache Saving Graydon from the Mob in 1776

Illustration for Old New York Coffee Houses; Theophylact Bache Saving Graydon from the Mob in 1776
Illustration for Old New York Coffee Houses; Theophylact Bache Saving Graydon from the Mob in 1776

Illustration for Old New York Coffee Houses; Theophylact Bache Saving Graydon from the Mob in 1776

Date1882
Artist (American illustrator, 1853–1911)
Illustration Citation"Old New York Coffee Houses," by John Austin Stevens, in Harper's New Monthly Magazine, March 1882
MediumInk and gouache on paper
Dimensionssheet: 8 3/8 × 11 15/16 in. (21.3 × 30.3 cm)
Credit LineGayle and Alene Hoskins Endowment Fund, 2012
Object number2012-3
On View
Not on view
ClassificationsDRAWING
Label TextIn this illustration, Howard Pyle imaginatively recreates a historical episode of 1776, when Theophylact Bache, a British-born American trader, emerges from New York City's Merchant's Coffee House, whose patrons favored the British during the Revolutionary period. He finds a mob harassing the American General Alexander Graydon, who was under British detention. Bache leans in between the General (with cane) and an accuser to interrupt up the assault. The author John Austin Stevens presents this event as one example of increasing sympathy toward the Revolution. The engraver John P. Davis was a distinguished artisan at the time, when engraving for illustrations was recognized as a fine art unto itself.
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