Hampton Court, from Kip and Knyff's Britannia illustrata, 1708

The inexorably linked careers of Jan Kip and Leonard Knyff trace a specialty of engraved views of English country houses, represented in minute detail from the bird's-eye view that was a long-established pictorial convention for topography. Their major work was Britannia Illustrata: Or Views of Several of the Queens Palaces, as Also of the Principal seats of the Nobility and Gentry of Great Britain, Curiously Engraven on 80 Copper Plates, London (1707, published in the winter of 1708 – 09). The volume is among the most important English topographical publications of the 18th century. Architecture is rendered with great care and detail, and the settings of parterres and radiating avenues driven through woods or planted across fields, garden paths gates and toolsheds are illustrated with meticulous detail, and amusingly staffed with figures and horses, coaches pulling into forecourts, water craft on rivers, filled with the delight native to the Low Countries' traditions. Some of the plates are maps, in the Siennese "map perspective," a feat of imagination in a world that had not conceived even of a balloon ascension Hampton Court, drawn by Knyff, engraved by Knyff for Britannia illustrata 1708 The two-dimensional work of art depicted in this image is in the public domain in the United States and in those countries with a copyright term of life of the author plus 100 years. ... Hampton Court, drawn by Knyff, engraved by Knyff for Britannia illustrata 1708 The two-dimensional work of art depicted in this image is in the public domain in the United States and in those countries with a copyright term of life of the author plus 100 years. ... The clock tower straddles the entrance between the inner and outer courts Hampton Court Palace is a former royal place on the north bank of the River Thames in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames about 12 miles (19 km) southwest and upstream of Central London, nowadays open to... ... Topography, a term in geography, has come to refer to the lay of the land, or the physiogeographic characteristics of land in terms of elevation, slope, and orientation. ... A parterre is a formal garden construction on a level surface consisting of planting beds, edged in stone or tightly clipped hedging and gravel paths arranged to form a pleasing pattern. ... An avenue can mean any of the following: Most commonly, it refers to two parallel lines of trees specially planted as a landscape feature. ... The Montgolfier brothers, Joseph Michel Montgolfier (August 26, 1740 – June 26, 1810) and Jacques Étienne Montgolfier (January 6, 1745 – August 2, 1799), inventors of the montgolfière hot air balloon. ...

Not all the gentlemen's seats were as up-to-date as Hampton Court: many-gabled Jacobean Toddington Manor, with the remnant of its moat, its parish church and half-timbered outbuildings contrasted with its fine, brand-new formal garden.

Johannes Kip (1653 - 1722) was a Dutch draughtsman, engraver and print dealer who was briefly a pupil of Bastiaen Stopendaal (1636-1707), 1668 – 1670, before setting up on his own; his earliest dated engravings are from 1672. After producing works for the court of William of Orange in Amsterdam, Kip followed William and Mary to London and settled in St. John's Street Westminster, where he conducted a thriving printselling business. He also worked for various London publishers producing engravings after such artists as Francis Barlow (c. 1626-1704) and Caius Gabriel Cibber (1630-1700), largely for book illustrations. His most important works were the large fold-out folio illustrations for Britannia Illustrata, 1708; for the 65 folio plates he engraved for the antiquary Sir Robert Atkyns' The Ancient and Present State of Gloucestershire, 1712, and for Le Nouveau Théâtre de la Grande Bretagne ou description exacte des palais de la Reine, et des Maisons les plus considerables des des Seigneurs & des Gentilshommes de la Grande Bretagne, 1715, an extended reprint in collaboration with other artists. Toddington Manor (now demolished), drawn by Knyff, engraved by Kip, (detail), Britannia Illustrata 1708-9 The two-dimensional work of art depicted in this image is in the public domain in the United States and in those countries with a copyright term of life of the author plus 100 years. ... Toddington Manor (now demolished), drawn by Knyff, engraved by Kip, (detail), Britannia Illustrata 1708-9 The two-dimensional work of art depicted in this image is in the public domain in the United States and in those countries with a copyright term of life of the author plus 100 years. ... William III and II (14 November 1650–8 March 1702; also known as William Henry and William of Orange) was a Dutch Prince of Orange from his birth, King of England and Ireland from 13 February 1689, and King of Scotland from 11 April 1689, in each case until his...

Leonard Knyff (1650 - 1721) was a Dutch draughtsman and painter, who collaborated with Kip to produce views of country houses and gardens for Britannia Illustrata and Le Nouveau Théâtre.

The topographical images of Kip and Knyff are significant for providing reliable illustrations of the development of the formal English garden in the Dutch-French style. Their documentary information for this period in British architecture and landscape design is particularly valued because, within a generation, the formal gardens seen in these views would be swept away in favor of the pastoral compositions, derived from idealized landscapes of painters such as Claude Lorrain, that characterize the "naturalistic"English landscape gardens. Seaport by Claude Lorrain Claude Lorrain (Lorraine, c1604 - Rome, November 23, 1682) was a French painter considered to be one of the greatest landscape painters. ...

In the later 20th century many of the Kip and Knyff views have been hand-colored, as monochrome landscapes proved increasingly harder to sell in the market.