John Papworth, the son of a stuccoist, had already served an apprenticeship to a builder and acquired the rudiments of interior design during a year spent with a well-known firm of furnishers and decorators by the time he was eighteen.. He started showing his drawings at the Royal Academy in 1791, and was soon in command of a flourishing business specialising in remodeling houses, and designing gardens, furniture and trophies. It was for his design of a Waterloo trophy that his friends acclaimed him a second Michelangelo leading him to adopt Buonarroti as his second name.

Before his rise to popularity, Papworth had been writing a regular series of architectural notes with illustrations for the well-known London publisher Ackermann. The 76 plates illustrating contemporary aspects of London from Ackermann’s periodical The Repository of Arts, Literature, Science, Manufactures, Fashions and Politics were  reissued in volume form in 1816. The majority of plates are aquatints, although a few are line engravings with only an aquatint sky, and are finished in hand-colouring.

The volume proved extremely successful with its clean architectural lines and pale transparent washes and continues to appeal as one of the most attractive works of London in the early eighteenth-century.

Below are a few examples from this collection. Please click on an image to see it in high-resolution with details of the work itself. For the full list of original antique Papworth aquatints,  please do contact us.

Saloon to the Private Boxes.

Cornhill. Lombard Street and Mansion House.

Somerset House and the New Church, St Mary le Strand. Viewed from the Morning Post office.

Bridge Street. View of the obelisk on the junction of Fleet Street and Ludgate Hill.

Charing Cross. View looking up the Strand.

Leicester Square viewed from Leicester Place.

Berkley Square. View of the square designed by William Kent at the end of the 18th century.

British Museum: View of the exterior of Montagu House, the first British Museum.

St. James’s Park. View of the bridge and pagoda erected for the Grand Jubilee.

Leadenhall Street. North view of India House.

(Courtauld Gallery). View of the hall at Somerset House with Apollo Belvedere, the Farnese Hercules and Furietti Centaurs.

View from across Horse Guards. Ministry of Defence