[Main hall, Library Company of Philadelphia, Fifth and Library Streets, Philadelphia] [graphic] / Colin C. Cooper, Jr. 1879.

Title supplied by cataloger.

Date from item.

Manuscript note in lower right corner: Plain White English no gold.

View showing the interior of the building of the subscription library, organized by Benjamin Franklin and his Junto in 1731, and built 1789-1790 after the designs of Dr. William Thornton at Fifth and Library streets. Depicts men and women patrons in the main hall. Hall also includes a balcony, the Librarian's desk, and library furniture. Built in book shelves of books line the walls. In the right, a man uses a card catalog that also holds books on bottom shelves and contains a tilted book rest. Next to him, a bearded man wearing a top hat and holding a walking stick and with a terrier dog at his feet stands at the Librarian's desk. An umbrella stand is in front of the desk. Nearby, is another card catalog with lower book shelves. A woman stands next to it. Across from her, a man browses books displayed on an angle in a case. Another man reads in front of a window. In the left a man reads at a table and a woman, possibly meant to be Anne Hampton Brewster who owned a dog and was a close friend of Librarian Lloyd P. Smith, stands and browses a book from a shelf. View also shows stairs to books on upper shelves near the Librarian's desk, an empty reading table surrounded by chairs, a rug on the floor, and art and artifacts, including a globe and several framed prints, paintings, and maps from the Library's collections on display around the room and on the upper balcony. Art and artifacts include the circa 1685-1700 William Martin tall-case clock, made for William Penn and known as the William Penn Clock (gift of Sally Price Warder); plaster bust of Oliver Goldsmith; the circa 1791-1792 Giuseppe Ceracchi sculpture bust "Minerva as Patroness of American Liberty" (gift of the Continental Congress, ca. 1800); circa 1844 James Reid Lambdin painting of William Penn (gift of Librarian John Jay Smith, 1845); and the marble bust "Clytie" (bequest of Dr. James Rush, 1869). Image also depicts, in the far right and left foregrounds, a hardback chair with cushion in the seat and partial views of a folio size book on a side table near a display case and framed works. In the far right upper background, the lower left corner of Samuel Jenning's 1792 painting "Liberty Displaying the Arts and Sciences, or The Genius of America Encouraging the Emancipation of the Blacks," hung on the balcony, is also visible.

Colin Campbell Cooper, Jr. (1856-1937) was born in Philadelphia in 1856, began his artistic training with Thomas Eakins at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1879, and moved to New York in 1904.

Retrospective conversion record: original entry, edited.

Cataloging and digitization made possible by the National Endowment for the Humanities: Democracy demands wisdom (PW-285234-22), 2023-2025.