Two fine representations of Tudor London deserve special mention. The first of them as regards time is a view of London, not from Suffolk House as is generally supposed, but from the tower of the church of St. George the Martyr, Southwark, with Suffolk House, or part of it, in the foreground. It is a pen drawing, ten feet long or more, and is now in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. Although the various important buildings are brought somewhat together in order to include them all, this view has a look of nature, the style also being free and skilful. The artist is Anthonie Van den Wyngaerde, now generally held to have been a Fleming in the train of Philip II. The second Tudor view, which is at Hatfield House and belongs to the Marquess of Salisbury, is an oil picture, also by a Flemish artist, Joris Hoefnagel. It was rather poorly described by George Corner in a paper read before members of the Surrey Archaeological Society in 1858, and was in the Tudor Exhibition at the New Gallery in 1890, being then called Horsleydown Fair; but in all probability it represents a marriage fête by the old church of St. Mary Magdalen, Bermondsey, which has since been rebuilt excepting the lower part of the mediaeval tower. The ground between the church and the river is portrayed with much detail, and the scene is full of life and incident. The Tower of London appears in the distance. Hoefnagel, born at Antwerp, was responsible for many beautiful paintings, mostly of the miniature kind, and drew plans for Braun and Hogenberg’s “Civitates Orbis Terrarum,” published at Cologne in 1572, among them that representing London. On this perhaps the plan ascribed to Agas was based; the alternative being that they both owe their origin in some degree to a still earlier plan, all trace of which has disappeared.
In the seventeenth century pictures of London subjects begin to be fairly plentiful. Among early ones the curious diptych of old St. Paul’s, dating from the time of James I and belonging to the Society of Antiquaries, may be mentioned. Although artless and entirely lacking in perspective, it contains details which are not to be found elsewhere, and there is a quaint London view at the back. Later in that century a series of accurate etchings by Hollar throw much light on the London of his day. About the same time also a few large and realistic pictures of London were painted, of which we are able to show two or three examples.
Soon after 1720 the charm of London scenes came to be more generally recognized, and from then onwards her river, her parks, her streets and public buildings, have been depicted times innumerable, and by some of our most famous artists. Until the latter part of the eighteenth century oil pictures of scenes on the Thames were plentiful, Samuel Scott, who was also a marine painter, setting the example. He was a friend of Hogarth, and together they illustrated the account of that frolicsome jaunt to the Isle of Sheppey and back in 1732, which is now in the British Museum. Scott, who was latterly much influenced by Canaletto, founded more or less of a school, some of the pictures usually ascribed to him being perhaps by his followers. Canaletto himself paid us a prolonged visit, and several of his fine London drawings are on our walls. There is also evidence that he designed two oil pictures here exhibited (Nos. 69 and 94), which were previously attributed to Scott. As time went on water-colours by the Sandbys and others gradually came into vogue. Many years before the date to which this exhibition is confined, our predecessors began to take an interest not only in river scenes and great public buildings, but in humbler subjects, such as old houses, and picturesque nooks and corners threatened with destruction. Pennant’s “London,” of which there are several splendidly extra illustrated copies, helped to encourage these varied tastes, so did Wilkinson’s “Londina Illustrata,” to name only one later publication, and competent draughtsmen and engravers got something like permanent employment on work of this kind.
We will now say a few words about the great private collections of London topographical prints, drawings, maps and plans, formed many years ago, chiefly of material which comes within the period to which we are limited. Three of these collections are specially famous, and they were brought together by busy men who died within living memory. These were Frederick Crace, to whom we owe the many portfolios catalogued under his name in the Print Room of the British Museum; James Holbert Wilson, whose collection has unfortunately been dispersed, and John Edmund Gardner. It is his amazing collection, far larger than all the rest put together, which has been saved for our interest and instruction by Sir Edward Coates, and of which a few examples are here shown. The late Mr. Gardner who formed it, began when little more than a boy, by the purchase for five guineas of an extra illustrated Pennant, and he continued buying steadily throughout a long life. He passed away December 29th, 1899, at the ripe age of eighty-two, having occupied himself with his beloved portfolios on that very day. Among his more important purchases were almost all the original drawings, about two hundred in number, made for the “Londina Illustrata,” and twenty-eight folio volumes of sketches by John Carter. Not very many years ago the late J. P. Emslie, who, with C. J. Richardson and others, carried on the work of previous generations, told the present writer that he had just completed his thousandth drawing for the Gardner collection.
To conclude. It is now somewhat the habit to speak slightingly of topographical pictures and drawings, as if there were something unworthy in copying with correctness the appearance of an interesting building or an attractive river or street scene. Such work is supposed to be outside the region of art, as giving no play to the imagination. But surely “the originality of a subject is in its treatment.” A man without a touch of the true spirit may paint the most ideal scene and leave us cold. On the other hand, while many artists of no exceptional talent, by their honest efforts have left topographical records for which we are thankful, almost all our great landscape painters have deigned now and then to depict London, and for those in sympathy with them they still give something of the thrill of pleasure which they themselves felt when they put their whole souls into their work.
PHILIP NORMAN.
CATALOGUE
