# The Bloody Massacre perpetrated in King Street Boston on March 5th 1770 by a party of the 29th Regt. > Paul Revere - 1770 (published about 26 to 28 March 1770); the date this sheet was printed is not documented > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/paul-revere/revere-the-bloody-massacre-boston-1770/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-11-09 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Paul Revere - **Date:** 1770 (published about 26 to 28 March 1770); the date this sheet was printed is not documented - **Medium:** Engraving with hand coloring on laid paper (National Gallery of Art wording) - **Dimensions:** Image 20 x 21.91 cm; sheet 27.31 x 23.81 cm (National Gallery of Art) - **Object type:** Print - **Period:** American colonial, 1770 - **Current location:** National Gallery of Art, Washington (Rosenwald Collection) - **Attribution:** accepted ## Summary Paul Revere's engraving of the shooting in King Street on 5 March 1770 was on sale in Boston about three weeks later, at eight pence, and became the standard picture of the Boston Massacre. It was copied from a design by Henry Pelham, who wrote to Revere on 29 March accusing him of taking his work, and who advertised his own print a week after Revere's appeared. This record anchors itself to one impression, the National Gallery of Art's hand-colored sheet from the Rosenwald Collection (1943.3.9042), and keeps every other impression, copy and restrike apart from it.The plate exists in two states; one impression of the first state and at least thirty-nine of the second were known by 1967, and this sheet shows the second-state corrections. The print departs from the testimony on who ordered the firing, on whether there was a volley and on the sign on the Custom House, and the record sets those departures beside what the Library of Congress, the Massachusetts Historical Society, the National Park Service and the Boston Athenaeum say of them.What is not known is as important as what is: no owner is recorded between 1770 and Lessing J. Rosenwald, the colourist is unidentified, the Day Book entries for 200 impressions are read in conflicting ways, and no modern auction result could be verified. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **1770** Paul Revere, Boston `[documented]` (publication) Revere engraved, printed and sold the plate. The Athenaeum says he advertised it on 26 March 1770 and the Library of Congress says it appeared on or about 28 March. The date this sheet was pulled is not documented. - **1770-before 1943** Unknown `[unknown]` (gap) The gallery's data records no owner between publication and Lessing J. Rosenwald. How and when the sheet came to Rosenwald is not recorded in anything fetched. - **before 1943-1943** Lessing Julius Rosenwald, Jenkintown, Pennsylvania `[documented]` (collector) The National Gallery's provenance text names Rosenwald, who from 1939 collected full time and in 1943 pledged his collections. - **1943** National Gallery of Art, Washington (Rosenwald Collection) `[documented]` (acquisition) Acquired 1943; accession number 1943.3.9042. Shown in the Graphic Survey Show (1986-87) and a touring exhibition of American prints (2016-17). No gallery location is listed. ## Open questions - Which Day Book entry belongs to which print? Goss (1891) reads an entry dated 9 March 1770 for engraving five coffins and printing 200 impressions for the Gazette of 12 March; the Middendorf catalogue reads a charge of 5 pounds on 28 March for printing 200 impressions of the Massacre. Only the Day Book at the Massachusetts Historical Society can settle the date, the item and the currency. - Whose print did Edes and Gill advertise on 26 March 1770? The notice names no maker; the Athenaeum and the Middendorf catalogue assign it to Revere, but Edes and Gill sold Pelham's print a week later at the same price. - Was Pelham's letter of 29 March 1770 sent? The only text is a copy printed in 1914 and a London copy found by Paul Leicester Ford; no reply from Revere is recorded. - What exactly did Pelham lend to Revere, a drawing, a plate or a proof, and when? The letter says only that he had entrusted it to Revere and that he borrowed prints from him. - Who coloured this sheet? Christian Remick is documented colouring a 1768 view of the troops landing at Boston; the claim that he coloured Bloody Massacre impressions rests on Wikipedia's reference to Fischer, p. 24, and a website, and could not be checked. - Is this sheet an impression of 1770? The gallery dates it 1770 and records a W watermark; Andrews documents later restrikes taken from the old copper and on old paper, and nothing fetched separates a 1770 printing from a later one for this sheet. - Does the original copper survive? Andrews (1901) put it, with money engravings on the back, in the hands of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and said it was scratched after the Centennial impressions; no recent catalogue of the plate was found. - Where is the first-state impression now? The Middendorf catalogue called it unique in 1967; its present owner was not verified. - Could Hogarth's Act of 1735 have protected an engraved design in Boston in 1770? None of the fetched sources says it was ever claimed there. - How many impressions exist now? The 1967 count is at least 40; no later census was found. ## Sources - [1] National Gallery of Art, Washington, Open Data Program, objects.csv, row objectid 11550 (accession 1943.3.9042, title, dates, medium, dimensions, inscription field, watermark, provenance text, credit line). - [2] National Gallery of Art, Open Data Program, objects_text_entries.csv, rows for objectid 11550 (bibliography and exhibition history). - [3] National Gallery of Art, Open Data Program, published_images.csv, row for object 11550 (image 37d6f867-673a-4fa1-946f-58ff43ba02d8, 5261 x 6068 px, the gallery's own description of the picture). - [4] National Gallery of Art IIIF image service, image 37d6f867-673a-4fa1-946f-58ff43ba02d8, viewed at full and cropped resolution to read the title line, verse and list of sufferers on the sheet. - [5] Wikidata item Q65024291, 'The Boston Massacre', print in the National Gallery of Art (NGA 11550). Tertiary: used only to confirm the identifier and the NGA attribution wording. - [6] Wikimedia Commons, file page 'Paul Revere, after Henry Pelham, The Boston Massacre, 1770, NGA 11550.jpg' (licence CC0, 3468 x 4000, donated by the National Gallery of Art under its Open Access policy). - [7] Letters and Papers of John Singleton Copley and Henry Pelham, 1739-1776 (Massachusetts Historical Society Collections vol. 71, Boston, 1914), full text: Henry Pelham to Paul Revere, 29 March 1770, p. 83; bill for printing p. 84; Pelham to Charles Pelham, 1 May 1770, p. 86. - [8] The Boston Gazette, and Country Journal, no. 781, Monday 26 March 1770 (Internet Archive scan, OCR text read): notice 'To be Sold by Edes and Gill ... (Price Eight Pence Lawful Money)' of a print of the late horrid Massacre in King-Street; printers' note on the Narrative and Depositions sent to England. - [9] The Boston Gazette, and Country Journal, no. 782, Monday 2 April 1770 (Internet Archive scan, OCR text read): notice of 'The Fruits of Arbitrary Power, an Original Print' to be sold by Edes and Gill and T. and J. Fleet, price eight pence. - [10] The Boston Gazette, and Country Journal, no. 784, Monday 16 April 1770 (Internet Archive scan, OCR text read): Paul Revere's own notice of a copper-plate print of the town of Boston and British ships of war landing their troops. - [11] The Boston Gazette, and Country Journal, no. 831, Monday 11 March 1771 (Internet Archive scan, OCR text read): report of the exhibition at Paul Revere's house on the anniversary of 5 March. - [12] American Paintings and Historical Prints from the Middendorf Collection (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1967), catalogue entries 60a, 60b and 61 (Revere, Boston Massacre, first and second state; Mulliken copy), full text on the Internet Archive. Modern catalogue, paraphrased only. - [13] William Loring Andrews, Paul Revere and His Engraving (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1901), full text on the Internet Archive: chapter on the Boston Massacre print, its copies, restrikes, the plate and the 1901 census of impressions. - [14] Elbridge Henry Goss, The Life of Colonel Paul Revere (Boston, 1891), full text on the Internet Archive: Revere as self-taught engraver; the Day Book entry of March 1770; the London copies; Revere's pen-and-ink plan. - [15] Charles Gettemy, The True Story of Paul Revere (Boston, 1905), full text on the Internet Archive: Pelham's letter and where it was found; Cunningham's 1904 doubts; the 1771 transparencies; Revere's charges to Edes and Gill. - [16] Tom Gearty, 'The Bloody Massacre', in Acquired Tastes: 200 Years of Collecting for the Boston Athenaeum (2006), pp. 296-298, as posted by the Boston Athenaeum (Wayback Machine copy of 6 April 2015). Modern text, paraphrased only. - [17] Massachusetts Historical Society, The Coming of the American Revolution, topic page 'The Boston Massacre' (introduction by the MHS). - [18] Massachusetts Historical Society, Collections Online, 'The Bloody Massacre perpetrated in King Street, Boston on March 5th 1770 by a party of the 29th Regiment' (engraving by Paul Revere, hand-colored, 22.8 cm x 20 cm), description from the Coming of the American Revolution project. - [19] National Park Service, 'Boston Massacre Trial' (article with footnotes to Zobel and to Founders Online). - [20] Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, catalogue record LCCN 2008661777 (ppmsca.01657), 'The bloody massacre perpetrated in King Street Boston on March 5th 1770', hand-colored engraving, notes citing Brigham pp. 41-57 (Wayback Machine copy). - [21] Library of Congress, catalogue record LCCN 2008680173 (ppmsca.19159), Boston: Printed by Paul Revere, [1770, printed later], heading Restrikes (Wayback Machine copy). - [22] Library of Congress, catalogue record LCCN 2012648847, re-engraved by Sidney L. Smith, Boston: Charles E. Goodspeed, 1908 (Wayback Machine copy). - [23] World Digital Library (Library of Congress), item 214, 'The Bloody Massacre Perpetrated in King Street, Boston, on March 5th 1770 by a Party of the 29th Regiment' (Wayback Machine copy). - [24] The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Open Access API, object 365208 (accession 10.125.103), hand-colored engraving and etching, 'second state', Gift of Mrs. Russell Sage, 1910. - [25] The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Open Access API, object 394325 (accession 24.90.1395), William F. Stratton, 1832 facsimile after the 1770 original, engraved facsimile copy. - [26] The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Open Access API, object 394326 (accession 24.90.1589), William F. Stratton, 1832 facsimile after the 1770 original, hand-colored. - [27] The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Open Access API, object 357186 (accession 24.90.1902), A Short Narrative of the Horrid Massacre in Boston, 1770, illustrations by Paul Revere Jr. (engraving, woodcut). - [28] The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Open Access API, object 388659 (accession 47.59.6), William L. Champney, The Boston Massacre, March 5, 1770, 1856, color lithograph with hand coloring. - [29] The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Open Access API, object 346486 (accession 24.90.1905(1-11)), Massacre in St. George's Field and Boston, etc. [eleven political pamphlets], George Kearsley, 1768-70. - [30] Wikipedia, 'Boston Massacre' (tertiary; used for the summary of the event and for claims attributed to it in the text, to be replaced by primary or scholarly sources). - [31] Wikipedia, 'Henry Pelham (engraver)' (tertiary; biography of Pelham). - [32] Wikipedia, 'Paul Revere' (tertiary; birth and death dates, career). - [33] Wikipedia, 'Massacre of St George's Fields' (tertiary; the London shooting of 10 May 1768). - [34] Wikipedia, 'Engraving Copyright Act 1735' (tertiary; Hogarth's Act). - [35] Wikipedia, 'History of copyright law of the United States' (tertiary; the Statute of Anne and the colonies). - [36] Wikipedia, 'Massachusetts pound' (tertiary; six shillings to the Spanish dollar). - [37] Wikipedia, 'Lessing J. Rosenwald' (tertiary; Rosenwald's collecting and his gift to the National Gallery of Art). - [38] Paul Revere House, 'Revere's Silver Shop' (the two surviving daybooks, 1761-1783 and 1783-1797, and what they record). - [39] Paul Revere House gift shop, 'Boston Massacre Print' (11 x 13 inch reproduction, ten dollars). - [40] A Short Narrative of the Horrid Massacre in Boston, perpetrated in the evening of the fifth day of March 1770 (Boston: Edes and Gill, 1770), full text on the Internet Archive: depositions describing the evening as moonlit. - [41] Peter Thacher, An Oration delivered at Watertown, March 5, 1776: To commemorate the bloody massacre at Boston (Watertown: Benjamin Edes, 1776), Internet Archive record. - [42] Wikimedia Commons, file page 'The Fruits of Arbitrary Power, or The Bloody Massacre by Henry Pelham.jpg' (New York Public Library, Print Collection, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Edwin Merrill; 5944 x 8201 px). - [43] Wikimedia Commons, file page 'Paul Revere, Jr. - The Bloody Massacre - Google Art Project.jpg' (categorised as a Google Art Project work in the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston). - [44] William Dunlap, A History of the Rise and Progress of the Arts of Design in the United States, ed. Frank W. Bayley and Charles E. Goodspeed, vol. 3 (Boston, 1918), entry 'Remick', full text on the Internet Archive. - [45] Boston Massacre Historical Society, 'Paul Revere's Engraving - Explained' (website, c. 2008; tertiary and unsourced, used only for what it asserts about Christian Remick, flagged as such). - [46] Wikimedia Commons, Category 'The Bloody Massacre by Paul Revere' (list of digitised impressions, copies and details on Commons). - [47] Wikimedia Commons, file page 'Four coffins of men killed in the Boston Massacre LCCN2004672647.jpg' (Library of Congress; engraver Paul Revere; from the Boston Gazette, 12 March 1770). - [48] Wikimedia Commons, file page for the Norman B. Leventhal Map Center (Boston Public Library) image of Revere's view of Boston and British ships landing their troops, 1768, publisher Alfred L. Sewell, dated 1770, 1870. --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. No image on this site is generated or simulated. 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