Sunday 10 May 2009

wenceslas hollar

Posted by at
Labels: , , ,

1 comment:

  1. LouSunday, May 10, 2009

    About 1639 he was appointed a teacher of drawing in the Royal Household, probably to both the young Princes. 1 His view of Richmond, etched in 1638 (No. 109, Plate LVIII), shows
    the Prince of Wales with courtiers in the foreground (the barge from which they have disembarked bears his Feathers), so that
    Hollar was probably already known at Court in 1638.

    Unhappily for Hollar the Earl of Arundel left England with other Royalist refugees in 1642, and it was about this time, no doubt, that Hollar was attached to the service of the Duke of York. In spite of the Civil Wars Hollar kept busily at work, doing as many as sixty-seven plates in 1643, and forty in 1644. In the
    latter year he and several other artists, among whom were Inigo Jones and William Faithorne, took up arms, and served under the
    Marquis of Winchester at Basing House. Robert Peake, the print- seller, who was actually second in command at Basing House, may
    have induced the engravers in his employ to join him. Hollar was taken prisoner in 1644 before the fall of Basing House, but
    managed to make his escape to Antwerp, where he joined his patron. In 1644 plates are dated both in London, and at Antwerp, and in the next year Hollar's name is found among the members of the Guild of St. Luke. Misfortune again met him, in the death of the Earl of Arundel, who had been ordered south for his health, and died at Padua in 1646. Thrown entirely on his own resources Hollar produced an enormous amount of work during the next six years at Antwerp, some 350 plates being dated between 1645 and 1651.

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)