Paul Revere

Print: 10 ½ x 9 3/16 in. Sheet: 11 x 9 3/8 in. Brigham, plate 14. This variant with small clock at left center reading 10:20 (Brigham notes a later variant, altered to the more correct time of 8:00). Printed on laid paper with indistinct watermark. Beneath the heading and the image are 18 lines of engraved verse ("Unhappy Boston! see thy sons deplore, / Thy hallow'd Walks besmear'd with Guiltless Gore...") At the bottom of the sheet, engraved in italics, is a detailed list of the casualties: "T
Paul Revere, the celebrated patriot of the American War of Independence, made his living as a silver smith, engraver and metalworker. A member of a militant group formed in 1765 and known as the ‘Sons of Liberty’, Revere produced engravings and other artifacts with proto-revolutionary themes the sale of which raised money for the dissident organization. Among these, the best known are a depiction of the arrival of British troops in 1768 (which he termed ‘an insolent parade’) and the pres
"Few prints have influenced history as much as Paul Revere's engraving of the Boston Massacre of 1770" (D. Roylance, American Graphic Arts, Princeton, 1990, p.48). Revere immediately recognized the propaganda value of the incident, and "saw the opportunity of furthering the patriot cause by circulating so significant a print" (Clarence S. Brigham, Paul Revere's Engravings, New York, 1969, p.52-53). Revere's powerful depiction was based upon a sketch of the bloody confrontation by Henry Pelham. B
The sanguinary events of 5 March 1770 in which five Bostonians died by British musketry-- took on great symbolic significance in the highly charged tenor of public affairs between England and its colonies, Massachusetts in particularly. Paul Revere's incendiary Bloody Butchery powerfully fanned the embers of opposition to British rule. The event, commemorated annually in following years, was a significant factor in radically altering Americans' attitude toward the King's armies quartered among t