A Philadelphia institution for almost 300 years, the Library Company has been able to collect a distinguished visual record of the city. Among the holdings are Peter Cooper's circa 1718 South East Prospect of the City of Philadelphia, the oldest surviving oil painting of any North American city; Philadelphia's earliest "news photograph," by premier early photographers W. & F. Langenheim, depicting the anti-Catholic riots of 1844; and an extra-illustrated manuscript of John Fanning Watson's seminal city history Annals of Philadelphia, presented to the Library Company in 1830.

 

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