Joseph Constantine Stadler (1755 – 1828) after Frederick Mackenzie (1788 – 1854)

The Chapel of All Souls College, Oxford (1814)

Hand-coloured aquatint

29.5 x 21 cm

Published by Rudolph Ackermann (1764 – 1834).

An engraving of All Souls’ chapel. All Souls College was founded in 1437 by Henry Chichele, Archbishop of Canterbury, to serve as a memorial to Henry V and the English dead in the Hundred Years War. The Front Quad appears virtually unchanged since it was first built in the years 1438-1343, thanks to a sympathetic Victorian restoration. The chapel was modelled after that of New College, where Chichele was a Member. It has a superb hammer-beam roof, excellent mediaeval stained glass, and a large number of original stalls. All services in the chapel are according to the Book of Common Prayer; the King James Bible is also used rather than more modern translations.

Frederick Mackenzie (circa 1788 – 1854) was a British watercolourist and architectural draughtsman. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1804, and contributed eleven drawings between that year and 1828. He contributed to the Society of Painters in Water Colours exhibitions from 1813, becoming an associate in 1822, and a full member the following year. From 30 November 1831 until, his death he was treasurer to the society. In later life Mackenzie was no longer commissioned to illustrate books.

Joseph Constantine Stadler was a prolific German émigré engraver of images after his contemporaries – here, 18th-century English landscape painter and diarist Joseph Farington. Stadler”s engravings are wide-ranging in subject matter and include landscapes, seascapes and portraits, as well as military, sporting and decorative subjects. Stadler was employed by the leading print publisher of the time, John Boydell. Stadler lived in Knightsbridge when he died at the age of 73.

Rudolph Ackermann was an Anglo-German bookseller, inventor, lithographer, publisher and businessman. 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.

Condition: good. Some age toning.

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