The Colonnade or Bower at West Point Designed by Major Villefranche, May 1782.
Watercolor and ink on laid paper, 5 5/8 x 16 ½ inches; inscribed in iron-gall ink at left top margin: Mrs. Isaac de Peyster Teller” and below the drawing along the lower margin: “A Collonade [sic] built at West Point During the American War to Celebrate the birth of Dauphne [sic] of France our Great and good Ally as then styled.”
“Major Villefranche, an ingenious French Engineer, had been employed with one thousand men about ten days, in constructing the curious edifice. It was composed of the simple materials which the common trees in the vicinity afforded, being about two hundred and twenty feet in length, and eighty feet wide, supported by a grand colonnade of one hundred and eighteen pillars, made of the trunks of trees. The covering of the roof consisted of boughs, or branches of trees curiously interwoven, and the same materials formed the walls, leaving the ends entirely open. On the inside, every pillar was encircled with muskets and bayonets, bound round in a fanciful and handsome manner, and the whole interior was decorated with evergreens, festoons of flowers, garlands, emblematical devices, Fleur-de-lis, and other ornaments significant of the existing alliance. This superb structure in symmetry of proportion, neatness of workmanship and elegance of arrangement, has seldom perhaps been surpassed on any temporary occasion; it affected the spectators with admiration and pleasure, and reflects much credit on the taste and ability of Major Villefranche. Several appropriate mottoes decorated the grand edifice, pronouncing benedictions on the Dauphin and happiness to the two allied nations.” (Doctor James Thacher, Continental Army, 31 May 1782).
This watercolor is drawn in perspective and is believed to be the original conceptual plan by Major Villefranche for the Colonnade erected at West Point during May 1782. The laid paper on which it is rendered is a heavy gauge of “cartridge paper” of the type used for preparation of powder cartridges for artillery pieces during the Revolutionary War era. It was subsequently presented to Alice Schenck (1765-1845), the eldest daughter of Major Henry Schenck of Swartwout’s New York Regiment, who also served as Continental Army commissary at Fishkill, New York. Schenck frequently entertained visiting guests from the army, including General George Washington, the Marquis de Lafayette and Baron von Steuben, at the Brett House--his headquarters-home overlooking Fishkill Landing (present-day Beacon). Alice married Isaac De Peyster Teller in 1790 and in 1799, the couple purchased the property from her widowed mother, Hannah Brett Schenck, and renamed it “Teller’s Villa.” The Colonnade drawing was inscribed by Mrs. Teller shortly before her death when she gave it to her daughter Margaret. During the Civil War, Margaret lent it to Captain Edward Boynton, Adjutant of the US Military Academy. Boynton had a lithographic copy made from it, which was published as a color plate between pp. 160-161 in his 1863 book, History of West Point and Its Military Importance During the American Revolution.” The Colonnade watercolor and the Brett-Teller” home remained in the Teller-Kleeck-Cary family until the mid-20th century, when the house was sold and the contents dispersed, the Colonnade watercolor then acquired by the late Frank Curdy, Orange County historian. It was subsequently purchased from his estate in 2007, when it was conserved (in-kind replacement of the torn upper-right corner).
Condition: very good, colors fresh, paper with light toning; small loss to upper corner, mended with period laid paper. Item #107