{"id":28936,"date":"2026-05-19T16:41:30","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T14:41:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inter-antiquariaat.nl\/en\/antiek\/niet-gecategoriseerd\/bank-of-england-1808\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T18:09:38","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T16:09:38","slug":"bank-of-england-1808","status":"publish","type":"product","link":"https:\/\/inter-antiquariaat.nl\/en\/antiques\/city-views\/foreign-city-views\/bank-of-england-1808\/","title":{"rendered":"Bank of England – August Pugin, Thomas Rowlandson, Rudolph Ackermann, 1808"},"content":{"rendered":"

THE BANK OF ENGLAND: PAPER MONEY, PUBLIC CREDIT AND FINANCIAL STABILITY<\/strong><\/p>\n

“The Great Hall, Bank of England<\/strong>“, etching with aquatint by Auguste Charles Pugin<\/a><\/strong>, Thomas Rowlandson<\/a> <\/strong>and John Hill<\/strong>, published by Rudolph Ackermann<\/strong> on 1 February 1808<\/strong> as part of “The Microcosm of London<\/em>.” With original hand colouring. Size plate mark: 23.1 \u00d7 27.3 cm; image: 19.5 \u00d7 25.5 cm.<\/p>\n

The Bank of England on Threadneedle Street<\/a> was the financial heart of London. In the Great Hall, banknotes were issued and exchanged, and customers could make deposits and withdrawals. At the far end stands a marble statue of King William III, the monarch under whose reign the Bank received its Royal Charter<\/a> in 1694. His effigy underscored the close bond between the Bank, the state and the public credit of the kingdom.<\/p>\n

The Bank of England had its origins in acute financial necessity. Following the Glorious Revolution<\/a> of 1688, William III<\/a> and England became embroiled in the Nine Years’ War<\/a> against the France of Louis XIV<\/a>. The government was in urgent need of capital, while traditional credit through goldsmiths was costly and unreliable. The Scottish merchant William Paterson<\/a> therefore proposed in 1694 that private investors should jointly lend the government \u00a31.2 million at 8 per cent interest. In return, they were incorporated as The Governor and Company of the Bank of England, with the privilege, among others, of issuing banknotes.<\/p>\n

Over the course of the eighteenth century, the Bank of England grew into a central institution within the British financial system: banker to the government, manager of the national debt, conduit for state loans and, increasingly, a banker’s bank as private banks came to hold their reserves there.<\/p>\n

Through the issuance of banknotes, the management of government debt and the discounting<\/a> of bills of exchange, the Bank made capital more mobile and credit more widely available. In doing so it supported not only the financing of the British state and its wars, but also the commercial and industrial expansion of the country.<\/p>\n

When this print appeared in 1808, Great Britain was in the midst of the Napoleonic Wars<\/a>. Since the Bank Restriction Act of 1797<\/a>, introduced following a bank run partly triggered by the threat of a French invasion, banknotes had temporarily ceased to be convertible into gold. (This temporary measure ultimately remained in force until 1821.) During this so-called Restriction Period, Great Britain effectively operated on inconvertible paper money. The expanded issuance of banknotes and lending to the state made it possible to continue financing the costly war effort against Napoleon.<\/p>\n

This print thus depicts not merely an impressive banking interior, but a space in which confidence in the British state was confirmed on a daily basis. To the left, visitors stand at the counters, while elsewhere in the hall bank clerks, merchants, city dwellers, country folk and sailors mingle freely. The original text in The Microcosm<\/em> drew attention to the contrast between the anxious faces of the “monied interest” and the wide-eyed astonishment of the country visitor.<\/p>\n

The Microcosm of London; or, London in Miniature<\/em> appeared between 1808 and 1810 in 26 monthly parts of four plates each, and was subsequently bound into three folio volumes containing a total of 104 hand-coloured aquatint plates. It was a costly and ambitious undertaking by Rudolph Ackermann<\/a> (1764\u20131834), one of the most important print publishers in London of his day.<\/p>\n

Price: Euro 325,-
\nRESERVED<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

THE BANK OF ENGLAND: PAPER MONEY, PUBLIC CREDIT AND FINANCIAL STABILITY “The Great Hall, Bank of England“, etching with aquatint by Auguste Charles Pugin, Thomas Rowlandson and John Hill, published by Rudolph Ackermann on 1 February 1808 as part of “The Microcosm of London.” With original hand colouring. Size plate mark: 23.1 \u00d7 27.3 cm; […]\n","protected":false},"featured_media":28938,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"product_brand":[],"product_cat":[1401,1414],"product_tag":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-28936","1":"product","2":"type-product","3":"status-publish","4":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"artist-ackermann-rudolph","7":"artist-rowlandson-thomas","8":"product_cat-city-views","9":"product_cat-foreign-city-views","11":"first","12":"instock","13":"shipping-taxable","14":"product-type-simple"},"yoast_head":"\nThe Great Hall, Bank of England \u2013 hand-coloured aquatint, 1808<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Hand-coloured aquatint of the Bank of England, the centre of paper money, public credit and financial stability around 1800.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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