Lot 68: John Bowles (c.1701-1779) - The East Prospect of London Southwark and the Bridge; The West Prospect of London Southwark and the Bridge. [c.1733].

John Bowles (c.1701-1779)
BOWLES, John (c.1701-1779). The East Prospect of London Southwark and the Bridge; The West Prospect of London Southwark and the Bridge. London: printed and sold by John Bowles at the Black Horse in Cornhill, [c.1733]. Large dual-panorama of London, with unusual bird's-eye views extending along the Thames showing both sides of London Bridge. Bowles's vision is a greatly updated rendering of two similar views originally engraved by Sutton Nicholls and published by Henry Overton in about 1718. With their viewpoints from the centre of the Thames, the panoramas show the distinctive nature of post-Great Fire London, illustrating both the western and eastern ends of Wren's St Paul's Cathedral, the Monument, and the large number of churches either built or under construction. The theatres on the south bank, torn down by the Puritans in 1644-1645, have been replaced by tenements, and the two cities of London and Westminster can be seen encroaching on one another. Yet the surrounding fields of the countryside are still in close proximity to the city; the windmills at Whitechapel and at St George's Fields, Southwark, testament to flour-making for the urban population adjacent to the rural agriculture. This print appears in a number of states; the present lot is a later variant indicated by the Cornhill imprint. Bowles moved from Cheapside to this new address in 1733. Large engraving of 2 panormas on 2 joined sheets, extending from Westminster in the west to Greenwich in the east, titles and numbered key under each panorama, numerous large ships in the Pool of London, and smaller water craft on the rest of the Thames, 590 x 984mm (plate mark), 650 x 1046mm (sheet), framed and glazed.