The South West Prospect of Guildford by Samuel & Nathaniel Buck,

Code: 54231

Date: 1738

Uncommon. Copper engraving  : 81.6cms.x  31.8cms.approx.  Image size :  780mm x 300mm. including text.  Centrefold as issued and only visible on verso, two faint other folds, short repaired split on fold bottom right margin, virtually invisible; brown mark and odd finger mark margins  else very good  condition and a good , strong dark impression as one would expect.  Descriptive letterpress describes the town in detail.  Key bottom right to the 14 most interesting landmarks. The number 30 top right corner is added by an old hand in ink.

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. 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).