Code: 54269
Date: Circa 1770
Copper engraving original a. Overall size : 81.4cms.x 32.2cms.approx. Image size : 777mm x 286mm. including text. Centre fold as issued and two extra folds on either side, the right hand one a little prominent but no splitting or damage. Number 76 top right may be in manuscript or may be printed, the cataloguer is unsure , a little greyness to bottom text else very good condition.
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. Prior to Bucks' magnificent copper plate panoramas, virtually nothing had been done to depict views of significant English cities and towns. Only a handful were included in the atlas by Braun and Hogenberg in their Civitates Orbis Terrurum published in Cologne in 1581.
The Buck brothers 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).
