Thomas Jefferys (1695 - 1771) for                                                                               George Heap (1714-1752) and Nicholas Scull (1687-1761)                                                An East Prospect of the City of Philadelphia taken by George Heap from the Jersey shore, under the Direction of Nicholas Scull Surveyor General of the Province of Pennsylvania, by George Heap
Published: London: 1756
Copperplate engraving
Sheet size: 22 5/8 x 37 3/4 in.
Frame size: 31 1/4 x 49 in.

ONE OF TWENTY-ONE COPIES KNOWN TO EXIST.

In 1750, Thomas Penn, proprietor of Pennsylvania, wrote to his agent in the province, Richard Peters, expressing a desire for “a perspective of the city [of Philadelphia], either from the Jersey shore or the Windmill Island”.   George Heap, who had recently completed a landmark elevation of the Statehouse untook the task of creating such a view.. Heap’s great (7 ft wide) view (also in the Arader collection) was sent to Penn by Nicholas Scull, the Surveyor General of Pennsylvania (1748-61), and was engraved and printed in London in 1754 from four large copper-plates. The resulting view measured nearly 7 feet wide, and was the “most ambitious effort at picturing an American city made before the Revolution.” (Snyder, p. 43.)  Due to its extraordinary size and the expense in producing it, it was necessary to create another view that would be of more manageable scale that would also feature the Philadelphia as a port city.