The South-West Prospect of Yarmouth, in the County of Norfolk (Great Y

Code: 53099

Author: Buck, Samuel & Nathaniel

Date published: 1741

1st edition. Copper engraving original and  later hand colouring. Overall size : 79.4cms.x 31.4cms.approx.  Image size :  783mm x 302mm. including text.  Centre fold as issued; 5cms bottom and 4 cms top archival re-inforcement to centrefold  and another 2.5cms repairing marginal tear bottom left margin.On verso are some abrasions to the surface from the removal of an olding backing board when held up to the light (only) four tiny  pinprick wormholes and two tiny wormtracks visible (archivally repaired).  Stunning and important engraving and in better condition than this sounds.

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 Bucks' 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).