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Lot Essay
The first official facsimile of the original signed manuscript of the Declaration of Independence.
From the first edition of this historic life size printing, commissioned by John Quincy Adams, the son of John Adams, a signer of the Declaration and one of its authors.
One of a small number of copies remaining in private ownership and the first copy to appear at auction in five years.
"Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness"
William J. Stone's meticulously prepared, actual-size, engraved facsimile of America's founding document remains the most accurate of all existing facsimiles. In 1820, forty-four years after the Declaration of Independence was adopted by Congress and signed in Philadelphia by 56 delegates to the Continental Congress, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams (himself the son of a Signer), commissioned Stone to execute a full-scale facsimile of the historic document. The manuscript original, which suffered rough treatment during the Revolutionary War and afterwards, was already showing signs of deterioration by early nineteenth century.
Adams' 1820 commission came in the wake of a series of what printing historian John Bidwell has termed "heroic engravings" of the Declaration of Independence, with notable examples published by John Binns and Benjamin Owen Tyler. They were very much products of a wave of renewed patriotism that swept the country in the wake of the end of the War of 1812. But these printings, which incorporated facsimiles of the delegates signatures, were not true representations of the parchment signed in the summer of 1776. Rather, they were inspirational engravings, often motivated by a partisan political agenda.
John Quincy Adams, according to Bidwell, "believed that the American people deserved something better than the Binns and Tyler interpretations of the text—a state-of the-art, scrupulously accurate reproduction untainted by demeaning publicity and arbitrary artistic interventions."1 Despite his misgivings about the nature of these "heroic" renditions of the Declaration, his first approach was still to Benjamin Owen Tyler. However, the engraver's proposed fee of $150 for the work was too steep for Adams.
The Secretary of State then turned to William J. Stone, who had worked in the same shop that printed Tyler's engraving. Skilled in the art of banknote engraving, Stone was the ideal candidate for Adams's commission. The method Stone used remains a matter of conjecture. Some have surmised that Stone used a wet-ink transfer process.2 However, a close examination performed by Seth Kaller, comparing the engrossed manuscript with several examples of Stone's engraving and the original copperplate suggest that tracing was the most likely method. "For example, the capital 'T' in 'The' at the top of the Stone prints has a decorative 45-degree diagonal line through it, running from lower left to upper right. The line is not visible on the original engrossed manuscript. The engrossed manuscript also has a heart-shaped, scalloped flourish … joining the final calligraphic element to the top of the 'T,' whereas the Stone copperplate, vellum, and paper facsimiles have a rounded flourish without the dip." More than a dozen other differences are contradictions to a wet process. Moreover, the fact that Stone's instructions were to preserve the document makes it unlikely that he took the risk of the wet process.3
In any case, it took Stone three years to complete his work. According to John Quincy Adams's diary, Stone presented a proof in October 1822 which included the signatures, "but upon the Declaration itself, he has yet much to labour…"4 But by April 1823, the copperplate was complete, and in May Stone received the State Department's authorization for 200 copies to be printed on vellum.5
Although headed in the credit line with the auspicious date of "July 4th, 1823," distribution began in June 1824 as per the 26 May Congressional resolution which directed that these be distributed to honor the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. The President (James Monroe) and Vice-President were each to receive two copies, two were allocated to former President James Madison, twenty copies to the two houses of Congress, two copies to each surviving Signer (Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Charles Carroll of Carrollton), and two copies to the Marquis de Lafayette, who was shortly to visit the country whose independence he had helped to secure (one of Lafayette's copies was sold at Christie's, 22 November 1985, lot 194). Because Congress designated some copies to be given to colleges and libraries, few remain today in private hands.
Ironically, although Adams sought to de-politicize the Declaration through his efforts of creating an exact facsimile, a few vellum copies may have served his own political purposes. In 1824, Adams was locked in a hotly-contested Presidential election. That election, for which there was no majority winner, was thrown into the House of Representatives. At least two examples of the Stone engraving include personal inscriptions from John Quincy Adams: to Joshua Prideaux and to Thomas Emory, both of whom were electors for the State of Maryland—a state that Adams appreciated would be difficult to win. And, in the end, the state awarded seven of its votes to Andrew Jackson and three to Adams. Catherine Nicholson of the National Archives cautioned that one "can only speculate if the Stone engravings that Adams presented to influential politicians such as Prideaux and Emory had any impact on the presidential electoral vote…."6
An Act of Preservation
The Stone facsimile, according to Bidwell, established John Quincy Adams "as the savior of the Declaration, which was already on the verge of illegibility." The copperplate William Stone produced over the course of three years is the source for all subsequent reproductions of the nation's founding charter. After Stone's run, which included 201 vellum copies and at least six on paper, the next recorded edition was commissioned by Peter Force in 1833 for his multi-volume history of the United States, American Archives. In those and subsequent printings, the top line credit was burnished off, and replaced by a simpler credit at the lower left corner (below George Walton's signature): "W. J. STONE SC. WASHN."
Today, approximately one quarter of the original 201 Stone engravings of the Declaration survive. Of these, approximately half are in institutional collections. The most recent census counts at least 52, but the number will never be exact due to vaguely-written descriptions in older auction and dealer catalogues that do not add sufficient detail to verify a distinct copy. Of those, 27 are part of institutional holdings, while at least nine others are held by a private collector who plans to donate them, leaving approximately twelve still in private ownership. We are grateful to Seth Kaller for his continued research into the history of the Stone Engravings.
___________________
1John Bidwell. The Declaration in Script and Print: A Visual History of America's Founding Document. (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2024) 51.
2National Archives, Declaration of Independence: The Adventures of A Document (Washington, 1976) 17. Some have contended that a transfer process he used caused "some physical harm to the parchment" of the original.
3Kaller, 19.
4Bidwell, 52; John Quincy Adams, 2 October 1822, entry, The John Quincy Adams Digital Diary, published in the Primary Source Cooperative at the Massachusetts Historical Society: https://www.primarysourcecoop.org/publications/jqa/document/jqadiaries-v32-1822-10-p385--entry2; Kaller, Seth. America's National Treasure: The Declaration of Independence of William J. Stone's Official Facsimile, (Washington: Foundation for Art and Preservation in Embassies, 2014), 17.
5Bidwell, 52; John Quincy Adams, 23 April 1823, entry. Digital Diary, https://www.primarysourcecoop.org/publications/jqa/document/jqadiaries-v35-1823-04-p027--entry25
6Catherine Nicholson, "Finding the Stones," Prologue, (Summer 2012), 44:2. https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2012/summer/stone.html
From the first edition of this historic life size printing, commissioned by John Quincy Adams, the son of John Adams, a signer of the Declaration and one of its authors.
One of a small number of copies remaining in private ownership and the first copy to appear at auction in five years.
"Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness"
William J. Stone's meticulously prepared, actual-size, engraved facsimile of America's founding document remains the most accurate of all existing facsimiles. In 1820, forty-four years after the Declaration of Independence was adopted by Congress and signed in Philadelphia by 56 delegates to the Continental Congress, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams (himself the son of a Signer), commissioned Stone to execute a full-scale facsimile of the historic document. The manuscript original, which suffered rough treatment during the Revolutionary War and afterwards, was already showing signs of deterioration by early nineteenth century.
Adams' 1820 commission came in the wake of a series of what printing historian John Bidwell has termed "heroic engravings" of the Declaration of Independence, with notable examples published by John Binns and Benjamin Owen Tyler. They were very much products of a wave of renewed patriotism that swept the country in the wake of the end of the War of 1812. But these printings, which incorporated facsimiles of the delegates signatures, were not true representations of the parchment signed in the summer of 1776. Rather, they were inspirational engravings, often motivated by a partisan political agenda.
John Quincy Adams, according to Bidwell, "believed that the American people deserved something better than the Binns and Tyler interpretations of the text—a state-of the-art, scrupulously accurate reproduction untainted by demeaning publicity and arbitrary artistic interventions."1 Despite his misgivings about the nature of these "heroic" renditions of the Declaration, his first approach was still to Benjamin Owen Tyler. However, the engraver's proposed fee of $150 for the work was too steep for Adams.
The Secretary of State then turned to William J. Stone, who had worked in the same shop that printed Tyler's engraving. Skilled in the art of banknote engraving, Stone was the ideal candidate for Adams's commission. The method Stone used remains a matter of conjecture. Some have surmised that Stone used a wet-ink transfer process.2 However, a close examination performed by Seth Kaller, comparing the engrossed manuscript with several examples of Stone's engraving and the original copperplate suggest that tracing was the most likely method. "For example, the capital 'T' in 'The' at the top of the Stone prints has a decorative 45-degree diagonal line through it, running from lower left to upper right. The line is not visible on the original engrossed manuscript. The engrossed manuscript also has a heart-shaped, scalloped flourish … joining the final calligraphic element to the top of the 'T,' whereas the Stone copperplate, vellum, and paper facsimiles have a rounded flourish without the dip." More than a dozen other differences are contradictions to a wet process. Moreover, the fact that Stone's instructions were to preserve the document makes it unlikely that he took the risk of the wet process.3
In any case, it took Stone three years to complete his work. According to John Quincy Adams's diary, Stone presented a proof in October 1822 which included the signatures, "but upon the Declaration itself, he has yet much to labour…"4 But by April 1823, the copperplate was complete, and in May Stone received the State Department's authorization for 200 copies to be printed on vellum.5
Although headed in the credit line with the auspicious date of "July 4th, 1823," distribution began in June 1824 as per the 26 May Congressional resolution which directed that these be distributed to honor the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. The President (James Monroe) and Vice-President were each to receive two copies, two were allocated to former President James Madison, twenty copies to the two houses of Congress, two copies to each surviving Signer (Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Charles Carroll of Carrollton), and two copies to the Marquis de Lafayette, who was shortly to visit the country whose independence he had helped to secure (one of Lafayette's copies was sold at Christie's, 22 November 1985, lot 194). Because Congress designated some copies to be given to colleges and libraries, few remain today in private hands.
Ironically, although Adams sought to de-politicize the Declaration through his efforts of creating an exact facsimile, a few vellum copies may have served his own political purposes. In 1824, Adams was locked in a hotly-contested Presidential election. That election, for which there was no majority winner, was thrown into the House of Representatives. At least two examples of the Stone engraving include personal inscriptions from John Quincy Adams: to Joshua Prideaux and to Thomas Emory, both of whom were electors for the State of Maryland—a state that Adams appreciated would be difficult to win. And, in the end, the state awarded seven of its votes to Andrew Jackson and three to Adams. Catherine Nicholson of the National Archives cautioned that one "can only speculate if the Stone engravings that Adams presented to influential politicians such as Prideaux and Emory had any impact on the presidential electoral vote…."6
An Act of Preservation
The Stone facsimile, according to Bidwell, established John Quincy Adams "as the savior of the Declaration, which was already on the verge of illegibility." The copperplate William Stone produced over the course of three years is the source for all subsequent reproductions of the nation's founding charter. After Stone's run, which included 201 vellum copies and at least six on paper, the next recorded edition was commissioned by Peter Force in 1833 for his multi-volume history of the United States, American Archives. In those and subsequent printings, the top line credit was burnished off, and replaced by a simpler credit at the lower left corner (below George Walton's signature): "W. J. STONE SC. WASHN."
Today, approximately one quarter of the original 201 Stone engravings of the Declaration survive. Of these, approximately half are in institutional collections. The most recent census counts at least 52, but the number will never be exact due to vaguely-written descriptions in older auction and dealer catalogues that do not add sufficient detail to verify a distinct copy. Of those, 27 are part of institutional holdings, while at least nine others are held by a private collector who plans to donate them, leaving approximately twelve still in private ownership. We are grateful to Seth Kaller for his continued research into the history of the Stone Engravings.
___________________
1John Bidwell. The Declaration in Script and Print: A Visual History of America's Founding Document. (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2024) 51.
2National Archives, Declaration of Independence: The Adventures of A Document (Washington, 1976) 17. Some have contended that a transfer process he used caused "some physical harm to the parchment" of the original.
3Kaller, 19.
4Bidwell, 52; John Quincy Adams, 2 October 1822, entry, The John Quincy Adams Digital Diary, published in the Primary Source Cooperative at the Massachusetts Historical Society: https://www.primarysourcecoop.org/publications/jqa/document/jqadiaries-v32-1822-10-p385--entry2; Kaller, Seth. America's National Treasure: The Declaration of Independence of William J. Stone's Official Facsimile, (Washington: Foundation for Art and Preservation in Embassies, 2014), 17.
5Bidwell, 52; John Quincy Adams, 23 April 1823, entry. Digital Diary, https://www.primarysourcecoop.org/publications/jqa/document/jqadiaries-v35-1823-04-p027--entry25
6Catherine Nicholson, "Finding the Stones," Prologue, (Summer 2012), 44:2. https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2012/summer/stone.html