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John Hill (1770 - 1850) after Augustus Charles Pugin (1762 - 1832)
St Aldate's From Carfax (1813)
Aquatint with original hand colouring
27 x 21 cm
Published by Rudolph Ackermann (1764 - 1834).
An engraving of St Aldate's, overlooked by Christ Church's pale and magnificent Tom Tower.
John Hill was born in London in 1770, and was an engraver's apprentice. He worked in aquatint and largely produced book illustration aquatints. He went to America in 1816 and produced the notable Picturesque Views of American Scenery amongst other books of prints.
Augustus Charles Pugin was an Anglo-French artist and architectural draughtsman. Pugin produced views of London, jointly creating the illustrations for the 'Microcosm of London' published by Rudolph Ackermann in 1811, followed by plates for Ackermann's books about Westminster Abbey, Oxford and Cambridge universities, and Winchester College. His later works included illustrations for Specimens of Gothic Architecture (1821–1823), The Royal Pavilion at Brighton (1826), Architectural Antiquities of Great Britain (1826), Specimens of the Architectural Antiquities of Normandy (1827), Illustrations of the Public Buildings of London (1825 to 1828), Paris and its Environs (1829 to 1831), and Examples of Gothic Architecture (1831). He also produced a book of furniture designs called Gothic Furniture, and assisted architects with detailing for their gothic designs. He ran a drawing school at his house in Bloomsbury.
Ackermann was an Anglo-German bookseller, inventor, lithographer, publisher and businessman. He attended the Latin school in Stollberg, but his wish to study at the university was made impossible by lack of financial means, and he therefore became a saddler like his father.
He worked as a saddler and coach-builder in different German cities, moved from Dresden to Basel and Paris, and then, 23 years old, settled in London. He established himself in Long Acre, the centre of coach-making in London and close to the market at Covent Garden.
Ackermann then moved to Little Russell Street where he published Imitations of Drawings of Fashionable Carriages (1791) to promote his coach-making. Other publications followed. In 1795 he established a print-shop and drawing-school at 96 Strand. Here Ackermann set up a lithographic press and began a trade in prints. He later began to manufacture colours and thick carton paper for landscape and miniature painters. Within three years the premises had become too small and he moved to 101 Strand, in his own words "four doors nearer to Somerset House", the seat of the Royal Academy of Arts.
Between 1797 and 1800 Ackermann rapidly developed his print and book publishing business, encompassing many different genres including topography, caricature, portraits, transparencies and decorative prints.
During the Napoleonic wars, Ackermann was an energetic supporter of the Allied cause and made significant contributions to British propaganda through his publication of anti-Napoleonic prints...
Category
1810s Prints and Multiples