Details
LONDON -- A Prospect of London: a book of the prospects of the remarkable places in and about the city of London. London: John Seller, [ca. 1690].
Small oblong 2° (182 x 260mm). Paper with posthorn watermark and papermaker's initials HC (Heawood 2780). Etched title and 29 etched and engraved views in London, probably after John Dunstall. (One or two plates with light marginal spotting, title slightly soiled, plate of Thanet House with paper flaw in upper blank margin.) 18th-century speckled paper boards, front cover with red leather lettering piece (lightly rubbed). Provenance: "Dunstall" (name written on title-page at an early date, but probably an identification of the artist rather than to indicate ownership).
John Seller (fl.1664, d.1697) was hydrographer to Charles II and James II, publisher, surveyor and compass-maker. The present series of plates was also published by Robert Morden and Philip Lea, probably between 1687 and 1692. A total of 31 plates have been identified by B. Adams (London Illustrated 1604-1851, Library Association, 1983, no. 15), but the plate of Clarendon House (Adams 15, no. 31, not present in this copy) is known only in the GLC History Library copy. This plate and that of the Custom House bear the name of John Dunstall, a drawing-master living in Blackfriars, who was employed by booksellers to engrave frontispiece portraits and views of buildings. He is known as an imitator of Hollar, whose work provides the model for eight of the plates in this series.
THE SERIES IS OF THE GREATEST RARITY, the Seller issue apparently recorded in only one copy, with the title-view in a different state (Nathan Coll., Sotheby's 5 June 1962, lot 226).
Small oblong 2° (182 x 260mm). Paper with posthorn watermark and papermaker's initials HC (Heawood 2780). Etched title and 29 etched and engraved views in London, probably after John Dunstall. (One or two plates with light marginal spotting, title slightly soiled, plate of Thanet House with paper flaw in upper blank margin.) 18th-century speckled paper boards, front cover with red leather lettering piece (lightly rubbed). Provenance: "Dunstall" (name written on title-page at an early date, but probably an identification of the artist rather than to indicate ownership).
John Seller (fl.1664, d.1697) was hydrographer to Charles II and James II, publisher, surveyor and compass-maker. The present series of plates was also published by Robert Morden and Philip Lea, probably between 1687 and 1692. A total of 31 plates have been identified by B. Adams (London Illustrated 1604-1851, Library Association, 1983, no. 15), but the plate of Clarendon House (Adams 15, no. 31, not present in this copy) is known only in the GLC History Library copy. This plate and that of the Custom House bear the name of John Dunstall, a drawing-master living in Blackfriars, who was employed by booksellers to engrave frontispiece portraits and views of buildings. He is known as an imitator of Hollar, whose work provides the model for eight of the plates in this series.
THE SERIES IS OF THE GREATEST RARITY, the Seller issue apparently recorded in only one copy, with the title-view in a different state (Nathan Coll., Sotheby's 5 June 1962, lot 226).