To the Right Honourable Francis Godolphin

A fine view of Hanover Square engraved by Robert Pollard and Francais Jukes, after a painting by Edward Dayes.

Trained at the Royal Academy in London, Edward Dayes was an English painter, draughtsman and printmaker. He is best known for his topographical watercolors, which he made for publications in the 1790s. However, he also produced drawings, oil paintings, etchings and aquatints ranging from large-scale history paintings to miniatures. Dayes was trained by his father in engraving and studied in the schools of the Royal Academy, where he began to exhibit in 1786, continuing to participate in exhibitions until his death. He became an exhibitor at the Society of British Artists and was elected a member in 1830. His mezzotints were highly esteemed, and he made engravings after the works of prominent contemporaries including Joshua Reynolds and J.M.W. Turner.

Robert Pollard and Francis Jukes were British engravers who produced many prints together, with Pollard doing the etching and Jukes the aquatinting, sometimes after Pollard's own designs. Pollard began as a painter of landscapes and marine subjects, and went to London where he became an engraver to the book trade. He was established as a publisher by 1779, issuing a wide range of decorative, patriotic and topographical prints. He made a number of fine line engravings after paintings by Robert Smirke. Jukes chiefly produced topographical prints in engraving, etching and, most notably aquatint, at which he was particularly skilled.

Engraved view of Hanover Square, with aquatint.