1751 Boydell Perspective View of the City of Oxford (West)

This is a beautiful English Vue d'Optique engraved by John Boydell in 1751. It presents the City of Oxford as seen across the fields to the west of the town. Many of the University town's landmarks are visible: Christ Church is fully visible, along with its famous Tom Tower/ Magdalen College, the Bodleian Library, Radcliffe Camera and Oxford Cathedral can also be seen, rising above the rooftops. In the foreground, farmers bale and gather hay, while in the cleared others enjoy a picnic. Standing apart from the group are two scholars (marked by their gowns and mortarboards) for whom, perhaps, food for thought is food enough.

A New Standard in British Engraving

Despite being engraved in England, this view was intended for the French market as evidenced by the dual-language title. 18th century Vues d'Optique or Vues Perspective are a form generally associated with Parisian engravers, and their German editors. French publishers dominated the market for these decorative views, a fact of which Boydell was painfully aware: while he met with success in selling French engravings to his British audience, he would for many years be frustrated by French refusal to trade engravings in kind, insisting on cash payment for their product rather than accepting English-engraved prints in trade. Over the course of the 1750s, Boydell improved both his own engravings and his selection of finely-crafted prints of other English artists' work, and by the 1760s the French were eagerly purchasing his output. This superbly-crafted panorama is representative of the works by which Boydell shifted the balance.

Publication History and Census

John Boydell engraved this view for publication as a separate issue in 1751, along with three other Oxford Views (North, South, East and West all told). As with most separately issued works, these survive poorly and are scarce both on the market and in institutional collections. We see one example of this separate view cataloged in the British Library.