• Title : Vue Du Pont De Westminster Du Cote Du Nord
• Date : 1780
• Condition: (A+) Fine Condition
• Ref:  92718
• Size: 21in x 14 1/2in (535mm x 370mm) 

Description: 

This large beautifully engraved hand coloured original antique print, a view of Westminster in London -including London Bridge, Tower Hill, Westminster Abbey and the old Parliament buildings - was engraved by Balthazar Frederic Leizelt and was published in 1780 in the unusual publication Vues d’Optique.

Vues d' Optique or Perspective Views: Perspective views, or "vues d'optique," are a special type of popular print published in Europe during the 18th century. These prints provided a form of entertainment when viewed through a device called an "optical machine" or an "optique." The most characteristic feature of the perspective views is their emphasized linear perspective, done to further intensify the enhanced appearance of depth and illusionistic space in the prints when viewed through an optique. When displayed in the optique, the prints might transport the viewer into a far away place---an unknown city, or perhaps into the midst of a dramatic bit of contemporary history. Another attribute of these prints is their bright, often heavy hand coloring, applied boldly so as to show the tints when viewed through the lens.

A number of perspective prints depicted American scenes at the time of the Revolution for a European audience hungry for news of the events in the British colonies. As documents of American history and European printmaking, these are unusual and appealing eighteenth-century prints.

General Description:
Paper thickness and quality: - Heavy & stable
Paper color: - White
Age of map color: - Original
Colors used: - Blue, yellow, green, red
General color appearance: - Authentic & bright
Paper size: - 21in x 14 1/2in (535mm x 370mm)
Plate size: - 15 1/2in x 10in (395mm x 255mm)
Margins: - Min 1in (25mm)

Imperfections:
Margins: - None
Plate area: - None
Verso: - Light soiling

• Title : Bridge Street, Chester....Printed by C Hullmandel....F. N. 1821
• Size: 16 1/2in x 12 1/2in (420mm x 315mm)
• Condition: (A) Good Condition
• Date : 1821
• Ref #:  26350

Description:
This scarce, fine early lithograph of Bridge St in the city of Chester, England by the British artist Francis Nicholson was print by the Charles Joseph Hullmandel in 1821 - dated at the foot of the print.

General Definitions:
Paper thickness and quality: - Heavy and stable
Paper color : - off white
Age of map color: -
Colors used: -
General color appearance: -
Paper size: - 16 1/2in x 12 1/2in (420mm x 315mm)
Plate size: - 16 1/2in x 12 1/2in (420mm x 315mm)
Margins: - Min 1in (25mm)

Imperfections:
Margins: - Soiling, repair to top & bottom margin, no loss
Plate area: - None
Verso: - Soiling

Background: 
Francis Nicholson 1753 – 1844 was a British artist, born in Pickering, North Yorkshire. He worked in watercolour and oil, and is mainly known as a landscape artist.
Nicholson studied with a local artist in Scarborough, before beginning his career in his native Pickering, producing sporting pictures and portraits for a variety of Yorkshire patrons. By the mid-1780s he was also making paintings of country houses, leading him to concentrate on landscapes in watercolour.
From 1789, he contributed views of both Yorkshire and Scotland to exhibitions at the Royal Academy. He also supplied topographical views for the Copper Plate Magazine.
He contributed Views of England in collaboration with the engraver Francis Jukes to The Beauties of England and Wales, Author: Britton, John & Edward Wedlake Brayley - A book published in 18 volumes from 1801 to 1815.
Although his market increasingly became London-based, Nicholson continued to live in Yorkshire - at Whitby, Knaresborough and Ripon. He did not move to London until about 1803. In 1804, he became a founder-member of the Society of Painters in Watercolours, and was a regular and prolific contributor to its exhibitions.
He wrote a handbook, The practice of drawing and painting landscape from nature, in water colours, which was published in 1820. It sold out and a second edition followed in 1823.
His c. 1837 self-portrait is in the National Portrait Gallery. & is known as the Father of water colour painting and also as an early pioneer of lithography, and was much admired by Turner.
Nicholson died in London and is buried there in Brompton Cemetery.

Hullmandel, Charles Joseph 1789 – 1850 
Hullmandel was born in London, where he maintained a lithographic establishment on Great Marlborough Street from about 1819 until his death.
He was born in Queen Street, Mayfair. His father was a German-speaking musician and composer, Nicolaus Joseph Hüllmandel (1751–1823), a native of Strasbourg who became a pupil of C. P. E. Bach and from 1780 spent ten years as a fashionable music teacher in Paris. In 1787 he married a Mademoiselle du Cazan, who was of a noble French family, and in 1789 sent his wife to England, following her in 1790, as the French Revolution unfolded.
As a young man, Charles Hullmandel studied art and spent several years living and working in continental Europe. He learned printmaking and printed many of his own works. In 1818, he set up a printing press in London after a visit to Munich with Rudolph Ackermann and went on to study chemistry under Michael Faraday for the purpose of improving his printing.
During the first half of the 19th century Hullmandel became one of the most important figures in the development of British lithography, and his name appears on the imprints of thousands of lithographic prints. He developed a method for reproducing gradations in tones and for creating the effect of soft colour washes which enabled the printed reproduction of Romantic landscape paintings of the type made popular in England by J. M. W. Turner. Hullmandel\\\'s essay The Art of Drawing on Stone (1824) was an important handbook of lithography. In 1843 he went into partnership with Joseph Fowell Walton (born 1812, living 1863), a cousin of the landscape artist and lithographer W. L. Walton, the firm then becoming known as Hullmandel & Walton.

• Title : Prospectus majoris viae, et Ecclesiae Sanctae Mariae in Londino; 25c Vue D Optique Representatnt; Le Grande Rue, et L Englise St Marie de Londres
• Ref  :  43197
• Size: 18in x 13in (460mm x 330mm)
• Date : 1756
• Condition: (A) Very Good Condition

Description:
This hand coloured original antique print, a view of Cheapside and St Marys Le Bow, London was published as part of the Vues d’Optique in 1760.

St Mary-le-Bow is an historic church rebuilt after the Great Fire of 1666 by Sir Christopher Wren in the City of London on the main east–west thoroughfare, Cheapside. According to tradition a true Cockney must be born within earshot of the sound of Bow Bells (which refers to this church's bells rather than St Mary and Holy Trinity, Bow Road, in Bow, an outlying village until the 19th century.

Vues d'Optique or Perspective Views: Perspective views, or "vues d'optique," are a special type of popular print published in Europe during the 18th century. These prints provided a form of entertainment when viewed through a device called an "optical machine" or an "optique." The most characteristic feature of the perspective views is their emphasized linear perspective, done to further intensify the enhanced appearance of depth and illusionistic space in the prints when viewed through an optique. When displayed in the optique, the prints might transport the viewer into a far away place---an unknown city, or perhaps into the midst of a dramatic bit of contemporary history. Another attribute of these prints is their bright, often heavy hand coloring, applied boldly so as to show the tints when viewed through the lens. 
A number of perspective prints depicted American scenes at the time of the Revolution for a European audience hungry for news of the events in the British colonies. As documents of American history and European printmaking, these are unusual and appealing eighteenth-century prints. (Ref: M&B; Tooley)

General Description:
Paper thickness and quality: - Heavy & stable
Paper color: - White
Age of map color: - Original
Colors used: - Blue, yellow, green, red
General color appearance: - Authentic & bright
Paper size: - 18in x 13in (460mm x 330mm)
Plate size: - 16 1/2in x 10in (420mm x 255mm)
Margins: - Min 1in (25mm)

Imperfections:
Margins: - Repair to top margin, no loss
Plate area: - None
Verso: - None

• Title : Lees Court the Seat of the Rt Hon.ble the Lord Sondes
• Size: 17 1/2in x 15in (445mm x 365mm)
• Condition: (B) Good Condition
• Date : 1719
• Ref #:  93116

Description:
This original copper plate engraved antique print a view of Lees Court and surrounding gardens, home of the Sondes family since the mid 17th century, located in the Swale district in the county of Kent, England was published in the 1719 Johannes Kips publication Britannia Illustrata or Views of Several of the Queens Palaces also of the Principal Seats of the Nobility and Gentry of Great Britain

Lees Court was built in 1652 on the site of an earlier house, by Sir George Sondes whose family had bought the estate in 1600. The front of the house is said to have been after a design by Inigo Jones. Sir George was made Earl of Feversham shortly before his death in 1677, and was succeeded in the estate and title by his son-in-law, Louis, Lord Duras of Holdenby. By the early 18c the house had been surrounded by an extensive arrangement of formal gardens, presumably at the direction of Duras, and these are recorded in engravings by Kip and by Badeslade (both in Harris 1719). When Duras died in 1709, the Lees Court estate passed to his late wife\'s sister, Sir George Sondes\' younger daughter. She was married to Lewis Watson, Lord Rockingham, who was created Earl of Rockingham in 1714. On his grandson Thomas Watson, 3rd Earl of Rockingham\'s death in 1746 Lees Court was inherited by a cousin, Lewis Monson, who took the additional name of Watson and was later raised to the peerage as Baron Sondes. Towards the end of the C18 Sir John Soane was commissioned to build new stables, estate offices, and a dairy at a time when changes were underway in the park. In the first decade of the C20 the C17 house was badly damaged by a fire and the Sondes family employed the architects Edward Hoare and Montagu Wheeler to rebuild it. In 1908 Mrs Gerald Leigh, who had leased the estate from Lord Sondes, commissioned Thomas H Mawson (1861-1933), assisted by Robert Atkinson to lay out formal gardens beneath the south-east front. Although leased at times throughout its history, Lees Court remained in the ownership of the Sondes family until the mid 1970s

General Definitions:
Paper thickness and quality: - Heavy and stable
Paper color : - off white
Age of map color: -
Colors used: -
General color appearance: -
Paper size: - 17 1/2in x 15in (445mm x 365mm)
Plate size: - 17 1/2in x 15in (445mm x 365mm)
Margins: - Min 1/2in (12mm)

Imperfections:
Margins: - None
Plate area: - Print backed with contemporary paper on top left verso
Verso: - Repair as noted

Background: 
Britannia Illustrata, also known as Views of Several of the Queens Palaces and also of the Principal Seats of the Nobility & Gentry of Great Britain is a 1707–09 map plate folio of parts of Great Britain, arguably the most important work of Dutch draughtsman Jan Kip, who collaborated with Leonard Knijff. The folio consisted of a range of large, detailed folded colored and black and white drawings which today provides a valuable insight into land and buildings at country estates at the time.
The volume is among the most important English topographical publications of the 18th century. Architecture is rendered with care, and the settings of parterres and radiating avenues driven through woods or planted across fields, garden paths gates and toolsheds are illustrated in detail, and staffed with figures and horses, coaches pulling into forecourts, water-craft on rivers, in line with the traditions of the Low Countries. Some of the plates are in the Siennese map perspective. At Althorp in Northamptonshire, the map revealed in detail the changes to the gardens by André Le Nôtre from earlier maps and depictions. Kip updated the plates in the 1720s.

• Title : Vue du Palias Royal de Hampton Court a 15 Milles de Londres
• Date : 1760
• Condition: (A) Very Good Condition
• Ref:  92704
• Size: 19in x 12 3/4in (480mm x 325mm) 

Description: 
This hand coloured original antique print, a view of Hampton Court Palace was published as part of the Vues d’Optique in 1760.

Hampton Court Palace: is a royal palace in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, Greater London, in the historic county of Middlesex, and within the postal town East Molesey, Surrey. It has not been inhabited by the British Royal Family since the 18th century. The palace is 11.7 miles (18.8 kilometres) south west of Charing Cross and upstream of central London on the River Thames. It was originally built in 1514 for Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, a favourite of King Henry VIII. In 1529, as Wolsey fell from favour, the King seized the palace for himself and later enlarged it. Along with St. James's Palace, it is one of only two surviving palaces out of the many owned by King Henry VIII.

In the following century, King William III's massive rebuilding and expansion project was intended to rival Versailles. Work ceased in 1694, leaving the palace in two distinct contrasting architectural styles, domestic Tudor and Baroque. While the palace's styles are an accident of fate, a unity exists due to the use of pink bricks and a symmetrical, if vague, balancing of successive low wings.

Vues d' Optique or Perspective Views: Perspective views, or "vues d'optique," are a special type of popular print published in Europe during the 18th century. These prints provided a form of entertainment when viewed through a device called an "optical machine" or an "optique." The most characteristic feature of the perspective views is their emphasized linear perspective, done to further intensify the enhanced appearance of depth and illusionistic space in the prints when viewed through an optique. When displayed in the optique, the prints might transport the viewer into a far away place---an unknown city, or perhaps into the midst of a dramatic bit of contemporary history. Another attribute of these prints is their bright, often heavy hand coloring, applied boldly so as to show the tints when viewed through the lens.

A number of perspective prints depicted American scenes at the time of the Revolution for a European audience hungry for news of the events in the British colonies. As documents of American history and European printmaking, these are unusual and appealing eighteenth-century prints.

General Description:
Paper thickness and quality: - Heavy & stable
Paper color: - Off white
Age of map color: - Original
Colors used: - Blue, yellow, green, red
General color appearance: - Authentic & bright
Paper size: - 19in x 12 3/4in (480mm x 325mm)
Plate size: - 14 1/2in x 9 1/2in (370mm x 240mm)
Margins: - Min 2in (50mm)

Imperfections:
Margins: - Light soiling
Plate area: - Small smudge & toning to sky
Verso: - Small repair, no loss

• Title : Vue du Palias Royal Somerset du cote de la Thamise
• Ref  :  26261
• Size: 16in x 9 1/2in (405mm x 240mm)
• Date : 1756
• Condition: (B) Good Condition

Description:
This hand coloured original antique print, a view of the old Somerset House, prior to the late 18th century refurbishment, on the River Thames, London was published as part of the Vues d’Optique in 1760.

Somerset House is a large Neoclassical building situated on the south side of the Strand in central London, overlooking the River Thames, just east of Waterloo Bridge. The building, originally the site of a Tudor Palace was designed by Sir William Chambers in 1776, and further extended with Victorian wings to the east and west in 1831 and 1856 respectively. The East Wing forms part of the adjacent Strand campus of King's College London

Vues d'Optique or Perspective Views: Perspective views, or "vues d'optique," are a special type of popular print published in Europe during the 18th century. These prints provided a form of entertainment when viewed through a device called an "optical machine" or an "optique." The most characteristic feature of the perspective views is their emphasized linear perspective, done to further intensify the enhanced appearance of depth and illusionistic space in the prints when viewed through an optique. When displayed in the optique, the prints might transport the viewer into a far away place---an unknown city, or perhaps into the midst of a dramatic bit of contemporary history. Another attribute of these prints is their bright, often heavy hand coloring, applied boldly so as to show the tints when viewed through the lens. 
A number of perspective prints depicted American scenes at the time of the Revolution for a European audience hungry for news of the events in the British colonies. As documents of American history and European printmaking, these are unusual and appealing eighteenth-century prints. (Ref: M&B; Tooley)

General Description:
Paper thickness and quality: - Heavy & stable
Paper color: - White
Age of map color: - Original
Colors used: - Blue, yellow, green, red
General color appearance: - Authentic & bright
Paper size: - 16in x 9 1/2in (405mm x 240mm)
Plate size: - 16in x 9 1/2in (405mm x 240mm)
Margins: - Min 0in (0mm)

Imperfections:
Margins: - Left margin cropped to image edge
Plate area: - Soiling and creasing the bottom left edge
Verso: - Soiling

• Title : Bridewell
• Ref  :  26335
• Size: 15in x 9 1/2in (380mm x 245mm)
• Date : 1756
• Condition: (A+) Fine Condition

Description:
This fine hand coloured original antique print of Bridewell Palace as it was as a prison in the 18th century was engraved by Benjamin Cole and published in the 1756 edition of The History of London from its Foundation to the Present Time...', by William Maitland, Osborne & Shipton and Hodges, London.

Bridewell Palace in London was built as a residence of King Henry VIII and was one of his homes early in his reign for eight years. Given to the City of London Corporation by his son King Edward VI for use as an orphanage and place of correction for wayward women, Bridewell later became the first prison/poorhouse to have an appointed doctor.
It was built on the banks of the Fleet River in the City of London between Fleet Street and the River Thames in an area today known as 'Bridewell Court' off New Bridge Street. By 1556 part of it had become a jail known as Bridewell Prison. It was reinvented with lodgings and was closed in 1855 and the buildings demolished in 1863–1864. (Ref: Tooley; M&B)

General Description:
Paper thickness and quality: - Heavy and stable
Paper color: - off white
Age of map color: - Early 
Colors used: - Red, yellow, green
General color appearance: -  Authentic
Paper size: - 15in x 9 1/2in (380mm x 245mm)
Plate size: -  13 3/4in x 8 1/4in (350mm x 210mm)
Margins: - Min 1in (25mm)
 
Imperfections:
Margins: - None
Plate area: - None
Verso: - None

• Title : Description of The Charter House
• Ref  :  26237
• Size: 15in x 9 1/2in (385mm x 235mm)
• Date : 1773
• Condition: (A+) Fine Condition

Description:

This large original antique print of the London Charter House situated in Smithfield London - accompanied with text page - was published by Francis Grose on the 1773 edition of The Antiquities of England and Wales.

The London Charterhouse is a historic complex of buildings in Smithfield, London dating back to the 14th century. It occupies land to the north of Charterhouse Square. The Charterhouse began as (and takes its name from) a Carthusian priory, founded in 1371 and dissolved in 1537. 
Substantial fragments remain from this monastic period, but the site was largely rebuilt after 1545 as a large courtyard house. Thus, today it "conveys a vivid impression of the type of large rambling 16th century mansion that once existed all round London". The Charterhouse was further altered and extended after 1611, when it became an almshouseand school, endowed by Thomas Sutton. The almshouse (a home for gentlemen pensioners) still occupies the site today under the name the Charterhouse.

Francis Grose (1731 –1791) was an English antiquary, draughtsman, and lexicographer. He was born at his father's house in Broad Street, St-Peter-le-Poer, London. 
Grose had early on shown a keen interest in drawing, having attempted sketches of medieval buildings as far back as 1749, and having taken formal instruction at a drawing school in the mid-1750s. He was not a particularly gifted draughtsman but he mixed in the London artistic milieu and began to exhibit, first at the Society of Artists in 1767–8 and then at the Royal Academy. His interest was in the field of medieval remains, which were beginning to exercise an increasing grip on the public imagination. 
In 1772, he published the first part of The Antiquities of England and Wales, a work which he unashamedly aimed at the popular market. Essentially, it targeted those who wanted to know about antiquities but had neither time nor means to visit them in person, and contained small panoramas of medieval ruins, together with an informative text on a separate page. Sometimes the text was taken from books already published, or from information supplied by other antiquaries (both acknowledged); sometimes Grose collated material himself from which he could work up an article. From 1772 onwards, he also toured the country to visit and draw sites for inclusion in The Antiquities. The fourth and last volume came out in June 1776, and Grose almost immediately began work on a supplement.

General Description:
Paper thickness and quality: - Heavy & stable
Paper color: - Off white
Age of map color: -  
Colors used: -  
General color appearance: -  
Paper size: - 15in x 9 1/2in (385mm x 235mm)
Margins: - Min 1/2in (12mm)

Imperfections:
Margins: - None
Plate area: - None
Verso: - None