1727 / 1741 Matthias Seutter Plan and Panorama of London

George II's London in Rich Detail.

This is Matthias Seutter's superbly-executed, elegant combined plan and panorama of the City of London, composed and published c. 1727 in honor of British King (and Imperial Elector) George II.

A Closer Look

The engraving combines a detailed plan of London at top with a panorama of the city at the bottom; both are oriented to the north, and are bisected by the Thames. The emphasis is on the more developed areas north of the river. The plan extends from the eastern edge of Hyde Park as far east as Stepney and its surrounds, and from Islington in the north down to Lambeth and Bermondsey in the south. The old London Bridge is the only span crossing the river; the map's source material predates the Westminster Bridge - the map details areas of development throughout, with hand-coloring defining parishes. Overall, the detail reflects the city no earlier than 1720 and probably no later than 1723.

The panorama - emphasizing London's forest of church spires, and especially the towering dome of St. Paul's Cathedral - presents a Thames teeming with ships, with Southwark in the foreground. In a disorienting turn, the view north of the Thames is sharply modern, reflecting the city of c. 1720. Meanwhile, London south of the Thames reflects the city of a century prior (the presence of the Globe Theatre, torn down in 1645, gives the game away.

Both the plan and the view include extensive lists of important buildings and locations, keyed by number to the engraving. In the upper left, the work is embellished with the Royal Arms of King George II (reigned June 11, 1727 - October 25, 1760), indicating the earliest probable date of 1727. Before that, when George was Prince of Wales, the arms would have shown the motto 'Ich Dien' instead of the Royal 'Dieu et Mon Droit.'

The Sources

The source material from this map is predominantly contemporaneous with its production. The map is a neat reduction of Thomas Bowles' A New and Exact Plan of Ye City of London and suburbs thereof, first printed in 1719, but updated many times thereafter. Seutter was probably able to avail himself of the 1723 edition of the Bowles, but we have been unable to scrutinize the 1727 edition and cannot rule it out.

The panorama is less straightforward. The area north of the Thames is closely copied from Johannes Kip's c. 1720 Prospect of Westminster and the City of London, but Kip's work did not detail the area south of the Thames. For this, Seutter may have drawn on several intermediate sources, likely the 1710 Van Keulen, but his delineation of Southwark and South London's famous theaters is not significantly different from that of C. Visscher's 1616 Londinum Florentissima Britanniae Urbs Toto Orbe Celeberrimum Emporiumque.

The Competition

The composition of the present work is close to that of Johann Christian Homann's Accurater Prospect und Grundris der Konigl Gros Britanisch Haupt und Residenz Stadt London. Homann's work is not identical, but reflects familiarity with the same sources as Seutter. It does not include the Royal Arms, but instead presents a pair of architectural views based on Johannes Kip's c. 1720 work. The precise dating of the early editions of Homann's work is not well understood. Howgego's dating at c. 1705 is flatly incorrect; a date earlier than 1719 is not credible, and the presence of Johann Christoph's Imperial Privilege in the Homann suggests a later date. Sandler suggests a date for the younger Homann's atlas between 1724 and 1730. It is thus possible that Homann's work predates Seutter's, which cannot have been produced earlier than 1727, but which is unlikely to have been composed much later given the focus on the newly-crowned George II.

Publication History and Census

This was drawn, and probably engraved by Johann Thomas Kraus on behalf of Matthias Seutter, no earlier than 1727. The present second-state example includes the privilege of the Imperial Vicariate and was therefore published between 1740 and 1742. Howgego's dating is accurate, but his rationale is not: his connection of the Royal arms to the 1741 date is not germane, as George II was using the arms as early as 1727. The 1741 date is instead supported by the presence of the Vicariate privilege. This engraving is scarce on the market. Only 13 examples in any state are listed in institutional collections.

Cartographer

Matthäus Seutter (1678 - 1757) was one of the most important and prolific German map publishers of the 18th century. Seutter was born the son of a goldsmith but apprenticed as a brewer. Apparently uninspired by the beer business, Seutter abandoned his apprenticeship and moved to Nuremberg where he apprenticed as an engraver under the tutelage of the prominent J. B. Homann. Sometime in the early 1700s Seutter left Homann to return to Augsburg, where he worked for the prominent art publisher Jeremiad Wolff (1663 - 1724), for whom he engraved maps and other prints. Sometime around 1717 he established his own independent cartographic publishing firm in Augsburg. Though he struggled in the early years of his independence, Seutter's engraving skill and commitment to diversified map production eventually attracted a substantial following. Most of Seutter's maps are heavily based upon, if not copies of, earlier work done by the Homann and De L'Isle firms. Nonetheless, by 1731/32 Seutter was one of the most prolific publishers of his time and was honored by the German Emperor Karl VI who gave him the title of Imperial Geographer, after which most subsequent maps included the Avec Privilege designation. Seutter continued to publish until his death, at the height of his career, in 1757. Seutter had two engraver sons, Georg Matthäus Seutter (1710 - 173?) and Albrecht Carl Seutter (1722 - 1762). Georg Matthäus quit the business and relocated to Woehrdt in 1729 (and probably died shortly thereafter), leaving the family inheritance to his wastrel brother Albrecht Carl Seutter, who did little to advance the firm until in own death in 1762. Following Albrecht's death, the firm was divided between the established Johann Michael Probst (1727 - 1776) firm and the emerging firm of Tobias Conrad Lotter. Lotter, Matthäus Seutter's son-in-law, was a master engraver and worked tirelessly on behalf of the Suetter firm. It is Lotter, who would eventually become one of the most prominent cartographers of his day, and his descendants, who are generally regarded as the true successors to Matthäus Seutter. (Ritter, M. Seutter, Probst and Lotter: An Eighteenth-Century Map Publishing House in Germany., "Imago Mundi", Vol. 53, (2001), pp. 130-135.)   Further Details...

Source

Seutter, G. M., Grosser Atlas, (Augsburg) 1741.    

Condition

Excellent. Original wash and hand color.

References

OCLC 159823407. Howgego, James L., Printed Maps of London circa 1553-1850, #68.