DESCRIPTION: A scarce early 18th century engraved view of the Howland Great Wet Dock (later Greenland Dock) at Rotherhithe, depicting one of the earliest purpose built wet docks in England and a key stage in London's transition from medieval tidal wharfage to enclosed, engineered dock systems. This view has margins > 3 inches. Shown from an elevated birds eye perspective, the composition centers on the rectangular dock basin with its lock entrance to the Thames, where vessels remain afloat at constant water level, a significant technical advance for fitting out, repair, and long term mooring. The surrounding slips, yards, cranes, and ancillary structures are rendered with functional clarity, presenting the dock as modern working infrastructure rather than a picturesque river view.
The landscape context is especially revealing. The dock is set amid extensive tree cover and open ground, reflecting the still semi rural character of Rotherhithe in the late 17th and early 18th century. At this date, heavy maritime industry coexisted directly with pasture, orchards, and managed estate land, long before the dense urbanization of the later Georgian docks. The trees are therefore not decorative additions but accurate markers of an early industrial riverside landscape.
The wooded setting also had practical importance. Trees stabilized soft riverbank soils and reclaimed ground, and acted as windbreaks for the exposed basin. Their orderly placement reinforces the docks role as a planned improvement, signaling permanence, investment, and control rather than ad hoc industrial growth. Engraved by Johannes Kip, the view combines topographical accuracy with a promotional intent, asserting the technical competence and commercial ambition behind one of London's earliest modern docks.
Johannes Kip was a Dutch born engraver who became the leading architectural and topographical printmaker in London around the turn of the 18th century. Trained in the Netherlands and active in England from the 1680s onward, Kip is best known for his precise bird’s-eye views of country houses, towns, and engineered landscapes, works that combined pictorial appeal with plan-like accuracy. His engravings often functioned as instruments of documentation and persuasion, presenting estates, harbors, docks, and urban improvements as ordered, rational spaces shaped by investment and control. This approach made his work especially well suited to recording new infrastructure at a moment when England was rapidly expanding its commercial and maritime reach.
Kip’s reputation rests in large part on his collaboration with John Harris on Britannia Illustrata and related series, which established a visual language for modern topographical engraving in Britain.
PUBLICATION DATE: 1728
GEOGRAPHIC AREA: United Kingdom
BODY OF WATER: Thames River
CONDITION: Excellent.
Outstanding example. Good paper, strong impression . One or two very small spots in the generous margins but other wise near perfect. 3+ inch margins.
COLORING: Modern, very attractive detailed hand color.
ENGRAVER: Kip
SIZE: 15
" x
13 "
ITEM PHYSICAL LOCATION: 200
PRICE: $800
ADD TO CART
|