39.2904°N / 76.6122°W · United States
Come in by water. From the bottom of the sheet the harbour narrows, divides into branches and pushes on into the city, until it stops in a square basin a few blocks below the engraved point. That is where the town was founded in 1729: at the very head of the water.
You choose the framing, the palette and the words of the caption. The work is drawn from real data, then printed to order in the workshop closest to you.
The water takes most of the lower half of the sheet: a broad stretch of river along the bottom, a branch heading off to the west, and the main arm climbing north-west between the long Locust Point peninsula and the eastern waterfront, its edges cut into piers. On the right, the shore runs out into the water in a point. The arm ends in the Inner Harbor, a basin with straight sides, and the densest streets of the city begin right above it. Higher up and to the left the grid tilts: the blocks to the north-west run at an angle to those of the centre, and the two orientations meet in a seam.
Two older shapes do not show. The first town had an outline like an arrowhead pointing west, and nothing draws it any more; the street that keeps the bend of the 1729 shoreline, Water Street, is too narrow to stand out from its neighbours at this scale. The Jones Falls, the stream that once looped round the first town, is hard to find too: it appears clearly only as a short channel where it enters the harbour, and through the centre it runs in a conduit. The heavy stroke coming down from the top left is the expressway, not the stream. Two green masses hold the corners: Druid Hill Park and its reservoir at top left, and the large rectangle of Patterson Park on the right.
Water is the subject here, and it takes nearly half the sheet: river, branches and basin share one ink. Choose it deep and calm, so that the piers along the branches read in negative and the square end of the Inner Harbor stays sharp. Green has two masses only, one in each upper corner, Druid Hill Park and Patterson Park, plus the small patches of the neighbourhoods; a quiet green is enough. The tilt of the north-western grid needs no colour at all: the streets carry it.
Portrait, with the centre a little south-east of the engraved point so the harbour gets the lower half and the basin sits just below the middle. The mouth of the river towards the bay and the far eastern reaches of the harbour stay outside. Come closer and the piers sharpen, but Druid Hill Park leaves by the top and the western branch shrinks to a corner.
The title, one line under it, the coordinates. In a port, the caption can say how you came in: a pier number, a street in Fells Point, the name of a boat.
Sixteen inks, in the configurator’s order. It is not in the catalogue, but you will find it in the palette library, filed under its material.
Opens the colour workshop with these 16 inks in place: change one, keep the rest.
It will wait in your account, ready for any piece.
The Commissioners of Maryland were authorised in 1729 to buy a sixty-acre tract for a new settlement, Baltimore Town, laid out at the head of the Northwest Branch of the Patapsco. It was shaped something like an arrowhead pointing west, and its southern boundary was the edge of the water at that time. The only physical reminder of that outline is the alignment of Water Street between Calvert and Grant streets, which follows the bend of the original shoreline.
In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, much of the harbour below Water Street was filled, and wharves were built out into what is now the Inner Harbor. The blocks between the old shoreline and today’s basin stand on that made ground, which is why the water now stops several streets south of the first town.
By 1800 Baltimore counted 26,514 inhabitants and had annexed two neighbouring settlements, Fells Point and Jones Town, today’s Oldtown. Fells Point is the point of land with its piers just east of the basin: the waterfront that runs out into the harbour on the right of the sheet belonged to another town before it belonged to this one.
Yes. The search covers the whole world, from a capital to a hamlet. For the Sky collection, any date works, past or future: the sky is calculated.
From 21 × 29.7 cm to 84.1 × 118.9 cm, that is A4 to A0, portrait or landscape depending on the material. Every size is shown with its price in the editor.
Four, from the barest to the most dressed.
Making depends on the edition: 1 to 3 working days for Fine Art paper and wooden hangers, 3 days for the poster and the mounted frame, 3 to 5 days for the framed canvas. Transit depends on the country:
| Delivered to | In transit | In total |
|---|---|---|
| European Union | 5 to 7 working days | 6 to 12 working days |
| United Kingdom | 2 to 3 working days | 3 to 8 working days |
| United States | 4 to 6 working days | 5 to 11 working days |
| Canada | National delivery | Given at dispatch |
| Australia | National delivery | Given at dispatch |
These are standard delivery times and remain indicative. For a set date, order two to three weeks ahead.
Digital editions are available immediately: the file of your piece can be downloaded from your account as soon as you order, and an email lets you know the moment it is ready.
A port is remembered by its way in: the pier where you waited, the corner bar in Fells Point, the row of brick houses climbing up from the water. Whichever it was for you, the map can be framed around it.
Compose my Baltimore poster
