Prospects of London Before and After the Great Fire
Medium
Etching; second state of five
Dimensions
Two plates joined: 4 3/8 × 26 9/16 in. (11.1 × 67.5 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Purchase, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, 1917
Accession Number
17.50.100, .101
Tags
Art Historical Context
Wenceslaus Hollar's *Prospects of London Before After the Great Fire*1666) is a masterful panoramic etching that captures the dramatic transformation of London in the wake of one of history's most devastating urban disasters. This second-state impression, from two joined plates measuring over 26 inches wide, juxtaposes the densely packed medieval skyline before the fire—dominated by timber-framed buildings and the spires of Old St. Paul's Cathedral—with the smoldering ruins afterward, including the gutted remnants along the River Thames. Hollar, a Bohemian-born artist renowned for his meticulo...
About the Artist
Wenceslaus Hollar · 1607–1677
Wenceslaus Hollar (1607-1677) was a prolific Bohemian etcher who became one of the most accomplished printmakers of the seventeenth century. Born in Prague, he trained under Matthäus Merian in Frankfurt before entering the service of Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, in 1636. Hollar spent most of his career in England, where he produced approximately 2,740 etchings documenting an extraordinary range...