At this great time in the nation’s history, when changes moral and
material are following each other with such speed that we “know not
what a day may bring forth,” it seems all the more incumbent on us
while we live in the present not to forget the past. Accordingly,
the Committee felt that pictures and drawings of the London of our
ancestors would have exceptional interest, and the present exhibition
is the result.
The space at our command being limited, we can only show a tithe of
the material still in existence, but, through the kindness of owners,
many fine works are on our walls, with others which, although as
regards craftsmanship they have only average merit, are valuable
as showing noteworthy scenes and buildings of a former day. Among
the number that have not been exhibited before we would mention the
drawings from Windsor which His Majesty the King has been graciously
pleased to lend, also those belonging to Sir Edward Coates—but a
trifling instalment of his unique collection.
By way of preface a few words on old London views may not be thought
superfluous. In manuscripts and early printed books pictures or
illustrations which purported to represent London were now and then
produced, but the artists did not attempt to imitate nature with
precision, their feeling for decorative effect being paramount.
Indeed, in R. Pynson’s edition of the “Cronycle of Englonde” (1510),
what is probably the earliest engraved view which has any claim to
represent London, shows no pretence of accuracy. With an effort of
faith we may believe that we are looking at representations of old
St. Paul’s, the Tower, London Bridge, Ludgate, and the church of the
Black Friars, but the design is symbolic rather than imitative.
Illuminations in manuscripts of the previous century in one or two
instances give us clearer topographical hints. A volume of the English
poems of Charles, Duke of Orleans, among the royal manuscripts at the
British Museum, shows the duke, who was captured at the battle of
Agincourt, as a prisoner in the Tower of London, where he was kept
for many years. The river side of the keep has been opened, and he
appears seated within. Portions of the Tower and old London Bridge
with its chapel are well portrayed, while other buildings, although
incorrectly placed, add a little to our knowledge. Another of the
royal manuscripts in the British Museum shows Chaucer’s Canterbury
pilgrims starting on their journey, with London in the background,
the most interesting feature of this topographically being the old
city wall, with its bastions at regular intervals. Something more may
be learnt from the engraving (after a picture at Cowdray, destroyed
by fire long ago) of the procession of Edward VI through London in
1547. The artist, however, is still not imitating nature directly, but
introduces conventional renderings of the more important buildings
with which he was familiar, without troubling himself much about
their relative positions.
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.