Londinum. London

A finely-engraved view of pre-fire London seen from the south side of the Thames with fashionably dressed figures promenading in the foreground. With descriptions below in both German and Latin separated by the coat of arms of London. Joseph Friedrich Leopold (1668-1726) was an engraver in Augsburg, taking over the publishing firm of J.U. Kraus in 1719. His son, Johann Christian Leopold (1699 - 1755), succeeded him.

Beautiful and rare panoramic view of the city sketched in the wake of the greatest views drawn by Fredrich Bernhard Werner and published in Augsburg by the heirs of publisher Jeremias Wolff (1663-1724), Georg Balthasar Probst (1673-1750) - his son-in-law- and his successor, his son Johann Friedrich (1719-1781).

Werner, born in Reichenau, was a draughtsman, engraver, engineer and stage designer; during his busy life he traveled extensively in various European states first as a soldier then as a simple traveler, producing numerous drawings of the places he visited. After spending a period of study in Augsburg working with engraver K. Remshard, he undertook a trip to Italy in 1730, visiting many cities on the peninsula, later becoming engineer and set designer to the King of Prussia. His vast output includes a multiplicity of works devoted to places and cities in various European countries - Poland, Holland, France, Italy - dwelling particularly on his homeland, to which the images of the "Scenografia urbium Silesiae", published by the heirs of Johann Baptist Homann in Nuremberg, are dedicated. Werner can be considered one of the most prolific draughtsmen of his generation, one of the last great figures during the eighteenth century to devote himself to the creation of the city portrait by depicting the urban structure in its entirety, in the wake of a tradition that was now centuries old; in the course of the century, the logics that would assert themselves would instead be, on the one hand, those that would break the city into several images, and on the other, those that would lead to the definitive establishment of scientific topography.

Werner's images provide a model for the creation of a number of other views published in Europe. These include those of the Viennese publisher Christofer Haffner (1668-1754), active probably between 1720 and 1750, and those of Johann Christian Leopold (1699-1755).

Leopold, was a modest Augsburg engraver and publisher; his series of city views, from which this engraving is taken, was published with very few print runs, thus making the works particularly rare.

Copperplate engraving, in very good condition.