Convention at Philadelphia, 1787 by Frederick Juengling and Alfred Kappes

Another engraving appears in R.M. Devins’ Our First Century published in 1881. It is also on-line at the New York Public Library website and in the NYPL Mid-Manhattan Picture Collection.

This four feet by five feet engraving, “The Convention at Philadelphia, 1787,” is by Frederick Juengling (see his signature F Juengling in the bottom left of the engraving) who was a member of the New School of Engravers in New York in the late nineteenth century. He was born in 1846 and died in 1889. The other engraver was Alfred Kappes, 1850-1894. (See his signature at the bottom right of the engraving.) Once again, Washington is placed in a prominent position and is clearly recognizable. So too is Franklin sitting in the front row and slightly to the left of Washington. The engravers capture the importance of the two windows, but have the curtains neither fully closed nor fully open. What is interesting about this portrayal is that there is a working desk where drafts of the Constitution are being hammered out including paper that is on the floor.