Historic Philadelphia Main Line Print - The Real Paoli Himself - Founding Fathers Meet Joyful Drunken Revelry

Treasures from THE PHILADELPHIA / DELAWARE VALLEY COLLECTION at The Willing Mind. By exclusive arrangement with The Grand Review.

Print size 18 x 24, and consciously formatted to work with a standard size store bought frame, or custom framed as you see fit.


I truly love a good story, especially when one comes flying around the corner and snatches you up unexpectedly.

General Pasquale Paoli was a Corsican patriot who designed and wrote the constitution of Corsica in 1755, which when ratified by the population set up a new republic, a representative democracy. Its first election made Paoli president. His works and accomplishments were well known and much admired by our Founding Fathers, and Paoli's constitution for Corsica played no small role in how we envisioned what was possible and desirable for our own constitution.

OK. Stage set.

Move forward to 1769. Joshua Evans builds an inn along the already well established and bustling Lancaster Pike, the main transportation link between the fertile farmlands of Pennsylvania and the hungry markets of Philadelphia. What to name it? He has a naming party and invites a gaggle of heavy drinkers, both important folks and salt of the Earth neighbors. Alright, he just invited a whole bunch of people, but since Americans drank beer and hard cider for breakfast and lunch, knowest ye that they also drank a LOT of whiskey and rum punch when they settled in.

Toasts were made. A great many toasts. At each toast, another name was suggested and all drank to it. 10 toasts. 20 toasts. No agreement on a name. 25 toasts. 30. Less people toasting, though those no longer capable of drinking cheered the others on. 35 toasts. 40 toasts. AT THE FORTY FIFTH TOAST...

Paoli was named. All cheered. Only one was able to lift his glass. Contest done. The Paoli Inn was born, and the village and town of Paoli grew around it.

Aaaaarrrrgh!

• Handmade item
• Materials: Art stock enhanced matte paper, archival ink
• Made to order
• Only ships within United States.

SHIPPING

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A NOTE ON OUR PROCESS, OUR CHOICES AND THE QUALITY OF THE GRAPHIC CRAFTSMANSHIP THAT GOES INTO OUR PRINTS.

Every print we deem exciting enough to present to the public via our Etsy store or available here at our studio has gone through a number of steps. The first of those is always discovering and falling in love with an obscure image, always an original that we can hold in our hands. That image is speaking to us, sometime screaming “Don’t leave me here. See what I am, what I was, what I can be, what I SHOULD be!”

There is a real sense of excitement involved, and a great many smiles and knowing grins when we make that deal and bring that ancient print, that battered photo, that scrap of ephemera that contains some scrap of genius from an unknown commercial artist home with us, knowing already how we mean to approach its restoration.

There is the heady promise of a further hunt just as real as what drags a weekend fisherman out of bed at 3AM to work a favorite brook as we start our research, looking for that great backstory, and both ready and willing to tumble down as many rabbit holes as are revealed to us to get that story.

Then there is a meticulous digital restoration that is as often as much fun as riding a vintage Moto Guzzi on a winding coastal road. I don’t care if that sounds crazy, it really is like jumping in the saddle! So many choices, so many chances to take to subtly or spectacularly give new life to otherwise permanently obscure images.

This dedication and the ongoing rush of joy in the accomplishment of it, and the opportunity to share the results in our studio and here on Etsy, is the fire of passion that keeps these engines roaring. We make every effort to ensure our customers are not just satisfied but thrilled, and we happily stand 100% behind our work.