A superb draughtsman and technician, Horter was born in 1881 and raised in Philadelphia. During the 1920s and 1930s, the etcher produced a tremendous amount of artwork. He also traveled to Europe several times, summered in Rockport, Massachusetts, and worked in New York City. Throughout the 1930s, he taught at the Philadelphia Museum School of Art and at the Tyler School of Art.
Horter’s drawings, lithographs, and etchings of large cities—primarily Philadelphia, New Orleans, and New York—are of superior quality. This print depicts the bustling city of Philadelphia in the area around the Old Stock Exchange as a patchwork of old and new, elegant and gritty.