Samuel and Nathaniel Buck

For the British band see Buck Brothers.

Engraving of 1727 by Buck Brothers, showing Beeston Castle in Cheshire from the south

Samuel and Nathaniel Buck were brothers who lived in England in the 18th century and were engravers and printmakers. Samuel did much work on his own but, when the brothers worked together, they were usually known as the Buck Brothers. More is known about Samuel than about Nathaniel.

Samuel Buck was born in Yorkshire in 1696. After publishing some prints in that county, he moved to London. With Nathaniel he embarked on making a number of series of prints of "antiquities", which consisted of ruined castles and former religious buildings in England and Wales. Starting in 1724, they travelled around the countries, completing the sets of prints for the regions of England by 1738 and producing those for Wales between 1739 and 1742. These are commonly known as Buck's Antiquities. During this time they also worked on a series of townscapes in England and Wales entitled Cities, Sea-ports and Capital Towns.^[1]

Engraving of 1737 by Buck Brothers, showing Bodiam Castle in Sussex from the northeast

Nathaniel was the first to die, sometime between 1759 and 1774. Samuel's later years were spent in poverty. He died on 17 August 1779 in London and was buried in the churchyard of St. Clement Danes.^[1]

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Ralph Hyde, ‘Buck, Samuel (1696–1779)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [1], accessed 6 November 2008