The Rotunda was a building that stood in
City Hall Park
City Hall Park is a public park surrounding New York City Hall in the Civic Center of Manhattan. It was the town commons of the nascent city of New York.
History
17th century
David Provoost was an officer in the Dutch West India Company. Hi ...
in
Lower Manhattan
Lower Manhattan (also known as Downtown Manhattan or Downtown New York) is the southernmost part of Manhattan, the central borough for business, culture, and government in New York City, which is the most populated city in the United States with ...
, New York City, from 1818 to 1870.
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History
The Rotunda was built at the initiative of American artist John Vanderlyn
John Vanderlyn (October 18, 1775September 23, 1852) was an American neoclassicist painter.
Biography
Vanderlyn was born at Kingston, New York, and was the grandson of colonial portrait painter Pieter Vanderlyn. He was employed by a print-sell ...
to display panoramic paintings. According to historians Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace
Myron Leon Wallace (May 9, 1918 – April 7, 2012) was an American journalist, game show host, actor, and media personality. He interviewed a wide range of prominent newsmakers during his seven-decade career. He was one of the original correspo ...
, Vanderlyn was motivated by the refusal of the city's cultural elite to include paintings such as his nude ''Ariadne Asleep on the Island of Naxos'' in public exhibitions on the grounds that it was an affront to public decency. Backed by John Jacob Astor
John Jacob Astor (born Johann Jakob Astor; July 17, 1763 – March 29, 1848) was a German-American businessman, merchant, real estate mogul, and investor who made his fortune mainly in a fur trade monopoly, by smuggling opium into China, and ...
and other wealthy New Yorkers, he built The Rotunda. Widely regarded as the city's first art museum, it operated on a commercial footing.
The building was designed on the model of The Pantheon
The Pantheon (, ; la, Pantheum,Although the spelling ''Pantheon'' is standard in English, only ''Pantheum'' is found in classical Latin; see, for example, Pliny, '' Natural History'36.38 "Agrippas Pantheum decoravit Diogenes Atheniensis". Se ...
in Rome. It was in diameter, crowned with a dome.
The Rotunda opened in 1818 to display Vanderlyn's ''Panoramic View of the Palace and Gardens of Versailles,'' a cyclorama
A cyclorama is a panoramic image on the inside of a cylindrical platform, designed to give viewers standing in the middle of the cylinder a 360° view, and also a building designed to show a panoramic image. The intended effect is to make vie ...
now on display in a purpose-built, circular room in the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
, in New York City. In the painting, to the right of the Latona Fountain
The Latona Fountain in the Gardens of Versailles lies in the Latona Basin between the Chateau de Versailles and the Grand Canal. On the top tier, there is a statue of the goddess Latona, mother of the sun and moon gods. The fountain operates thr ...
, Vanderlyn painted himself pointing towards Czar Alexander I of Russia
Alexander I (; – ) was Emperor of Russia from 1801, the first King of Congress Poland from 1815, and the Grand Duke of Finland from 1809 to his death. He was the eldest son of Emperor Paul I and Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg.
The son of ...
and King Frederick William III of Prussia
Frederick William III (german: Friedrich Wilhelm III.; 3 August 1770 – 7 June 1840) was King of Prussia from 16 November 1797 until his death in 1840. He was concurrently Elector of Brandenburg in the Holy Roman Empire until 6 August 1806, wh ...
.
In time its use changed to housing government agencies, and the building was altered accordingly.[ On November 5, 1852, in the offices of the ]Croton Aqueduct
The Croton Aqueduct or Old Croton Aqueduct was a large and complex water distribution system constructed for New York City between 1837 and 1842. The great aqueducts, which were among the first in the United States, carried water by gravity from ...
Department, the American Society of Civil Engineers and Architects
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
was founded.[ The society held meetings at this location from 1853 to 1855.]
Today, a bronze plaque inside the park marks the site of the Rotunda.
References
Further reading
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Federal architecture in New York City
Demolished buildings and structures in Manhattan
Civic Center, Manhattan
1817 establishments in New York (state)
1870 disestablishments in New York (state)
Art museums established in 1818
Buildings and structures demolished in 1870