Lithographer and artist
John Bachmann
The Swiss lithographer who gave America its first great bird’s-eye views of New York.
On Picturepops™ cards · 3
The life
1817–1899Born Switzerland
John Bachmann trained as a lithographic artist in Switzerland and Paris and arrived in New York in 1848. His views of New York, Boston, Philadelphia and other cities, drawn from an imagined point high in the air, were among the first true bird’s-eye views in the United States and were widely copied at home and in Europe. He lived for most of his life in Jersey City, which he liked to slip into the corner of his New York views. Our card City of Hartford is his 1864 view, and his bird’s-eye views also sit inside Boston: The State House and New York Picture Map, To the Rising Generation.