Rare Views: Historic Cities from Around the World

Featuring Rare and Beautiful Views from Around the World!

Below are featured artists who are widely known for their grand display of important landmarks, landscapes and city-scapes 

David Roberts (1796-1864)

from The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt, and Nubia

London: 1842-1849

Hand-colored lithographs

Roberts began his grand tour of the Near East, departing for Alexandria in the summer of 1839, and spent the remainder of the year exploring Lower Egypt, encountering innumerable ancient ruins and monuments. Early in 1840, he embarked on a circuitous route to the Holy Land, via Mount Sinai and the legendary Nabataean city of Petra, in modern Jordan. He finally reached Jerusalem, before visiting other important sights in modern Israel, and finally concluding his tour in Syria. Upon his return to England, F.G. Moon introduced Roberts to the master lithographer Haghe, a collaboration that resulted in this masterpiece, which Abbey described as "one of the most Important and Elaborate
ventures of nineteenth-century publishing.

Rudolph Ackermann

The Repository of Arts, Literature, Commerce, Manufactures, Fashions and Politics

London: 1809-1828

Hand-colored engraving

Ackermann was a successful shop owner, his store the Repository of Arts opened in 1797 and became a spot for the English elite to socialize and shop for prints, illustrated books, decorative objects, art supplies, old master paintings and miniatures Ackermann extended his shop and created a yearly publication that showcased British manufacturing, in 1809 he began publishing his serious The Repository of Arts, Literature, Commerce, Manufacturers, Fashions ad Politics.  Ackermann's Repository, as it was also known, influenced English fashion, tastes, architecture, politics and literature throughout the Regency period and into the Georgian Era.

Carel Allard

“Constantinopel”

From Orbis habitabilis oppida et vestitus

c. 1695

Copperplate engraving

Allard is considered to be the first compiler of a townbook to couple the plates this way. Orbis habitabilis comprises 28 views of European towns , 24 Asian towns, 24 African towns and 24 American towns. The text for the book was in Latin by Ludolph Smids, a Groningen doctor and antiquary who settled in Amsterdam in 1685. The plates are by Aldert Meyer and Thomas Doesbergh, and Allard himself closely supervised the engraving of the plates.

Henry Salt (1780-1827)

Twenty-four views in St. Helena, the Cape, India, Ceylon, the Red Sea, Abyssinia, and Egypt

London: William Miller, 1809

Hand-colored aquatint engravings 

In 1816 Salt was given the post of British Consul-General of Egypt. His position gave him unique opportunities to pursue his growing interest in the monuments and antiquities of Egypt. He employed archeologists such as Giovanni Belzoni to excavate ancient Egyptian sites, such as Thebes, Giza and Abu Simbel, and undertook important archeological research at the Pyramids of Giza and the Sphinx. Salt also collected a large number of artifacts, such as the head of Ramses II, most of the antiquities Salt collected were purchased by, and can be seen at, The British Museum and the Louvre.

Mathias Merian

From: Topographia Galliae

Amsterdam: 1661

Copperplate engravings

Mathias Merian was one of the most prominent members of the leading print publishing family of 17th-century Germany, known throughout Europe for his engravings of cityscapes and landscapes, his scientific books, and his editions of the noted series of travel books, the “Great Voyages.” Born and trained in Basel, Switzerland, Merian joined the Frankfurt publishing house of Johann Theodor de Bry in 1616 and, the following year, he married de Bry’s daughter Maria Magdalena. Merian gained his greatest acclaim as head of the family publishing house following the death of his father-in-law in 1623.

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