print; illustrated book BM-1937-1021.1.1-21

Period:Unknown Production date:1757
Materials:paper
Technique:etching, letterpress,
Subjects:chinese architecture boat/ship chinese costume machine/mechanism
Dimensions:Height: 458 millimetres (each plate approx) Width: 304 millimetres

Description:
Volume of twenty-one plates with accompanying text. 1757 Etching, with letterpress
IMG


Comments:As a young man Chambers travelled to Bengal (1740-42) and China (1743 and 1748-49) in the service of the Swedish East India Company. In 1755, he settled in London and two years later produced this handsome volume of Chinese designs based on drawings of buildings and other sights he had observed. He was able to promote himself as having unique knowledge of a fashionable subject – no other British architect had visited China. Also in 1757 Chambers published an essay on garden design in which he advocated what he saw as a Chinese method of subtle improvement on nature. His theories on landscape gardening – promoting variety and contrast – were further developed in his “Dissertation on Oriental Gardening”, 1772.For a preliminary drawing for Plate XXI, see 1962,0714.19.