Samuel Buck

Leonard Gordon Duke, C.B.E. (1890-1971);

Iolo A. Williams (1890-1962), Kew Gardens, Surrey,

by family descent to the present owner 

I.A. Williams, Early English Watercolours and some cognate drawings by artists born not later than 1785, London 1952, p. 15, pl. 27

Engraved:

By Samuel Buck for ‘Collection of Engravings of Castles, and Abbeys in England', 1721-28 

Samuel Buck was born in Yorkshire and is celebrated, along with his younger brother, Nathaniel, for his important and long-running project to record sites of antiquarian interest throughout England and Wales. Between 1721 and 1745 they produced over 400 engravings of castles, monasteries and ruins, as well as a further 87 views of towns and cities. These prints were known as ‘Buck’s Views’ and were sold individually and collected in volumes for book purchasers.

The present lot was engraved as number 326 in the series and is a rare survival of an original drawing in private hands. It has a distinguished provenance, having been owned by Leonard G. Duke, an important collector of the first half of the twentieth century, and then by his friend, Iolo Williams, another collector and author of Early English Watercolours (1952). Williams describes the fine technique of the drawing at length on page 15 (see Literature).

In 1722 Buck drew four views of Fountains Abbey that were engraved by George Vertue and published by the Society of Antiquaries of London during the following year. One of the prints shows Fountains Abbey from the same view point as the present work but is clearly not derived from it, such are the differences in details in the foreground.¹

1. See Vetusta Monumenta, online edition, pl. 1.9-1.12