A View of the Lord Mayor's Mansion House showing the Front of the House and the West Side

This etching was one of a series of prints produced in the early 1750s of the popular view of the Mansion House. Many of the views are very similar with slight differences in the positioning of the figures in the prints.

Completed in 1753 after a design by George Dance the elder (1741-1825) the Mansion House was positioned in the heart of the City to provide a permanent residence for the Lord Mayor of London. This view shows the Palladian Mansion House on the right and looks towards Cornhill on the left and Lombard Street. The tower of the Royal Exchange can be seen on the left.

This print which shows the Lord Mayor's procession was produced by successful engraver Fourdrinier and published by Thomas Bowles, to capitalise upon the current interest in the new building. The collection has another version of this print A18025.

Taken from the same viewpoint but without the Mayoral procession was another series featuring the Mansion House also produced by Thomas Bowles in 1751 (53.52/13) and later reproduced by Laurie & Whittle (A13535 and Z1434) It has a deliberately enhanced perspective which lent itself to future reproduction as a ‘perspective view’ to be viewed through a specially made optical diagonal machine. This gave the appearance of three-dimensionality in a print
A coloured version of this print without the procession appeared in the publisher Robert Sayer’s Catalogue entitled ‘Two Hundred and Six Perspective Views adapted to the Diagonal Mirror, or Optical Pillar Machine’ in 1753.

The other engraving likewise illustrated a