View of Dublin, from the Magazine, Phoenix-Park

Book Description

London: Jas. Malton, 1795. Colour-printed aquatint with hand finishing. Very good condition apart from some overall light soiling and minor foxing, a skillfully repaired 7/8" tear in the bottom margin, and a few light brown spots in the left side of the image. 9 1/2 x 16 5/8 inches. 11 3/8 x 18 3/8 inches. A fine plate from a second, later edition (circa 1818) of 'Picturesque Views of the City of Dublin', Malton's detailed topographical and architectural survey of Georgian Dublin. Opened to the public by the Lord Chesterfield in 1747, Phoenix Park is one of the largest enclosed municipal parks in Europe. It was originally used as a deer park, and its extensive grounds began at the edge of the city. The Magazine Fort, from which this beautiful panoramic view of Dublin was depicted, was built in the park around 1734. The son of the architectural draughtsman Thomas Malton, James Malton was an engraver and watercolourist, who once taught geometry and perspective and worked as a draughtsman in the office of the celebrated Irish architect James Gandon. He is best known for Picturesque and Descriptive View of the City of Dublin, a highly acclaimed series of twenty-five engravings originally published between 1792-1799. Malton's beautifully coloured prints from this work, which depict many of the impressive new public buildings erected, truly capture the dramatic architectural metamorphosis Dublin underwent in the eighteenth century. His later publications include Four Views in Devon (1800), a small collection of aquatints after F. Keenan, and Essay on British Cottage architecture (1804). Cf. Abbey, Scenery of Great Britain and Ireland in aquatint and lithography 1770-1860; cf. Benezit, Dictionnaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs, et Graveurs, vol. 9, p. 117; cf. Dictionary of National Biography.

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