The Earliest Printed View of Bangkok.
A beautiful aquatinted and etched view of Bangkok, produced from drawings taken during John Crawfurd's diplomatic mission to the royal courts of Siam in the 1820s.
The view, which is the first printed view of Bangkok, faces east across the Chao Phraya River towards the present-day Bangkok Chinatown. The large palace in the background is Dusit Maha Prasat, the throne hall of Rama I (1737-1809), which was built in 1789. In the middle of the river is a large Chinese junk.
The credited artist for the view is H.A.C., about whom we know nothing. It was probably originally drawn in 1822 or '23, and then printed in 1828 after being aquatinted by John Heaviside Clark.
The view appears in Crawfurd's Journal of an Embassy from the Governor-General of India to the courts of Siam and Cochin-China.