ABSTRACT
The many detailed drawings and prints of London by Wenceslaus Hollar (1607-77) have made the historical appearance of England’s capital in the seventeenth century familiar to us and provide an unsurpassed contemporary pictorial source.1 Hollar’s prints are illustrated throughout the volumes of the Survey of London and some have been reproduced in facsimile by the London Topographical Society. In many of Hollar’s prints we catch glimpses of parts of the metropolis and its prominent buildings, such as Cornhill and the Royal Exchange, seen in the background of Winter (P609), from the series of The Four Seasons of 1643-44, each of them an exquisitely dressed full-length female figure.2 We even get an insight into the prosperous and thriving life of the city, its shops and dwellings with smoking chimneys, as well as miniscule pedestrians, carts and coaches. There are also more straightforward direct views in his series of eight topographical prints dated 1647, such as the Tower of London (P908) and Lambeth Palace (P1038).3 These evocative images are well known and frequently illustrated, and the ‘Long View’ of London and the river Thames is justly famous. Hollar’s cartographic material, and his technical mapmaking ability, is an increasingly appreciated aspect of his large and varied oeuvre, and featured among the highlights of the exhibition London: A Life in Maps held at the British Library in 2006-2007.4 To coincide with the 400th anniversary of Hollar’s birth there were a number of displays held in London in 2007, all featuring maps by Hollar: John Fisher organised London before and after the Great Fire: Etchings by Wenceslaus Hollar (1607-1677) at the Guildhall Library; Peter Barber devised Wenceslaus Hollar as a Map Maker for the British Library; and Antony Griffiths showed a chronological selection of key works drawn from the Department of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum.
