Conflagration of the Masonic Hall, Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Samuel Jones
1819
Medium
Oil on mahogany panel
Dimensions
48.4 × 60 cm (19 3/16 × 22 3/16 in.)
Classification
painting
Department
Arts of the Americas
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
111295
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
On March 9, 1819, Masonic Hall, built just 8 years earlier, burned to the ground. A Philadelphia publisher commissioned artists Samuel Jones and John Lewis Krimmel to create a composition of the fire’s devastation for distribution as a print (etched by John Hill). Circulation of such sensational events was an early 19th-century means of broadcasting news, expanding the reach of fine arts, and making a profit. Jones painted this work, which served as a study for the print. Krimmel, the nation’s f...