- Title: Central Park, New York, A picturesque Guide through the whole Park showing all the improvements up to June 1865
- Author: Louis Prang
- Date: 1865
- Medium: hand-colored lithograph
- Condition: Uniformly toned paper, Sharp engraving with bright hand applied color, expertly tissue backed, small infill at one fold intersection, some old tape residue (tape since removed)
- Inches: 9.25 x 35 [Paper]
- Centimeters: 23.49 x 88.9 [Paper]
- Product ID: 308061
The Greatest Urban Park in North America
A rare and fantastic view of New York City's Central Park, printed by Louis Prang in 1865. The map details the park as envisioned by its architects Vaux and Olmsted showing paths, bridges, lakes, trees and then some. These are all presented in great pictorial detail. Interestingly, the many rock outcrops within the park are some of the few places in the city that one may view the ancient bedrock of Manhattan that formed some 500 million years ago, known as Manhattan schist.
About Prang-
Prang was a renowned lithographer born in Russia in 1824 who emigrated to the United States in 1850 and subsequently opened and operated a well known press in Boston, Massachusetts. After Louis bought his partners' share of their firm Prang & Mayer in 1860, he changed the name of the business to L. Prang & Company. Under this domain, Prang began printing advertising and business materials as well as war maps that were distributed in newspapers as the Civil War raged. In 1874 Louis Prang began selling Christmas cards in America and is therefore considered "the father of the American Christmas card".