North East Prospect of City of Hereford by Samuel & Nathaniel Buck

Code: 53628

Date: 1732

First edition. Uncommon. Copper engraving. Overall sheet size : 79.5cms.x 30.3cms. Image size: 783mm x 300mm.  Centrefold as published; uncoloured as published.  Old fold where text portion was folded ;
very good condition indeed.

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. By so doing they 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).