Code: 54839
Date: 1770
Uncommon. Copper engraving with later hand colouring : 81cms.x 78.7cms.approx. Image size : 788mm x 302mm. including text. Centrefold as issued. The letterpress below the image describes Swansea thus:' It is a very Antient large and well built Town, belonging to his Grace the Duke of Beaufort. It carries on a Considerable Trade, particularly in Coals; and in this Neighbourhood are several considerable Works in Copper, Iron and Tin, By the Conveniency of its Situation'..Key to ten most prominent points of interest and 'The station where this drawing was taken' is to be found on the bottom right. Very good condition apart from one very small circular area of thinness, visible only when held up to the light and a nick at right margin.
Samuel Buck and his younger brother Nathaniel, were topographical artists and engravers who, from about 1720 to 1753 toured England and Wales recording the architectural antiquities of both countries.
They also produced a series of panoramic views of the "cities, seaports and capital towns" and by doing so, created a valuable record of what English and Welsh towns and cites looked like before the onset of the Industrial Revolution.
In all, the two brothers produced 423 engravings of monasteries, abbeys, castles and other ruins and 87 panoramic prospects of towns and cities which taken altogether, may be regarded as one of the most important documentary projects of the 18th.Century. Indeed Ralph Hyde declares that,'the Buck peregrinations were uncomfortable, dangerous and exhausting. In such conditions, their persistence and single-mindedness in pursuing their systematic recording of England and Wales year after year until the task was complete and their goal accomplished is downright heroic' (The Town Panoramas of Samuel and Nathaniel Buck).
