[VIEW OF SAINT MARY MAGDALEN COLLEGE, OXFORD]

Buckler, John

Verlag: London, 1799

Colored aquatint engraving. Image size 15 1/2 x 22 3/4 inches, matted and framed to 24 x 32 inches. Minor toning, else fine. Matted and framed. A large aquatint engraving by British artist John Buckler (1770-1851), with a view of Mary Magdalen College as seen from across the river. The River Cherwell is in the foreground, and the Magdalen Bridge and the College buildings are seen from a distance, with the main tower rising centrally in the landscape. Buckler went to work as a clerk for the College's steward at the age of fifteen, establishing a lifelong involvement with the college. "Buckler is chiefly remembered for his skill and industry as a topographical artist, a calling which he pursued in the seemingly generous spare time allowed him by Magdalen College. His first recorded drawings were of Wolvercote church, north of Oxford; one of his drawings was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1798, and he exhibited there every year until 1849. In 1797, with the encouragement of Martin Routh, president of Magdalen, whom he later described as his 'early and constant friend' (Buckler, 50), he published two aquatint engravings of the college, and two years later, in 1799, again with Routh's support, he made an engraving of Lincoln Cathedral, the first of a series of engraved views which by 1814 had grown to include all the English cathedrals and many of the major collegiate and parish churches.Commissions from other antiquaries, among them William Salt of Stafford, and from several noblemen, gentlemen, and clergymen, followed rapidly, and by the end of his life Buckler could claim authorship of 13,000 drawings of buildings throughout England and Wales, with Somerset, Yorkshire, Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, Staffordshire, and Wiltshire especially strongly represented. (Taunton Museum, Somerset, holds a collection of Buckler's drawings, as does the Bodleian Library, Oxford.) These meticulous works of art, in pencil or pen and wash, supplied an invaluable body of information about medieval and later buildings, many of them previously unrecorded, and many subsequently demolished or drastically altered" - DNB. This print appears to be rather scarce and is actually misidentified and dated incorrectly in the British Museum's online catalog, as their copy is lacking the imprint line. No other references to this work could be found. DNB (online). BRITISH MUSEUM CATALOG (online) 1917, 1208.2955. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers WRCAM42098

Bibliografische Details

Titel: [VIEW OF SAINT MARY MAGDALEN COLLEGE, OXFORD]
Verlag: London
Erscheinungsdatum: 1799