Sketch-book of Wenceslaus Hollar

A sketch-book, bound in vellum, with a number of loose leaves inserted, containing drawings by Wenceslaus Hollar (1607-77). They cover the years c 1626-52, but are not in chronological order. For the most part the drawings are views of Germany (chiefly towns along the Rhine, including Cologne, Koblentz, Stuttgart and Mnster, c 1631-35) and the Netherlands (chiefly Amsterdam, Leyden and Delfshaven, 1634). The two earliest are of Prague (1626 and 1627) and some of the latest are of London (c 1643-45), on folios 6(a), 14(b)r, 15r, 17v, 18r, 18v-19r, 24v and 33r. The drawings are mostly in pen and ink, but a number are in pencil and one or two in red crayon. A panoramic view of London on folio 24v includes delineations of old St Paul's Cathedral and the Globe and Rose theatres on the south bank of the Thames. On folio 36 is the inscription: 'Johannes Euelynus. Ce que j'ai j'ay receive. Vigilentia cum diligentia: 1641'.

According to Richard Pennington, the book has the appearance of having been put together at a later date, and is possibly made up from two separate sketch-books. Some loose scraps of paper are inserted, and some are pasted onto the leaves.

Wenceslaus Hollar (1607-1677), etcher, was born in Prague, Bohemia, on 23 July 1607. In 1627 he left Prague for Stuttgart, from 1629 to 1630 he was at Strasbourg, and in 1631 at Frankfurt am Main, where he worked for Matthus Merian. From 1632 to 1636 he lived in Cologne, whence he made extended tours up the Rhine to Mainz and downstream to Amsterdam. The Cologne publisher Abraham Hogenberg issued Hollar's first major productions, a set of views from Prague to the Dutch coast titled Amoenissimae aliquot locorum in diversis provinciis iacentium effigies ('Delightful likenesses of some places lying in various countries') (1635) and a set of small portraits entitled Reisbuchlein ('Little travel book') (1636).

By 1636 Hollar was based in London and had become an accomplished landscape artist and proficient etcher. He had many patrons, including Thomas Howard, 2nd Earl of Arundel. His first major production in England, a panoramic view of Greenwich (1637), was dedicated to Queen Henrietta Maria and proudly signed 'Coelator' (recte caelator, engraver) to Arundel. A copy of the Wilton Diptych (1639), dedicated to the King, is one of a few prints by Hollar bearing a royal privilege providing protection from copyists. On 4 July 1641 Hollar married Margaret Tracy (d. 1653), a servant of the Countess of Arundel.

In 1644 he moved to Antwerp where he joined the artists' Guild of St Luke as a free master. In late 1651 or early 1652 Hollar returned to London where he took up the patronage of the publisher John Ogilby and the antiquary and herald Sir William Dugdale. Ogilby's luxury edition of Virgil, with illustrations after Francis Cleyn (1654), and Aesop's Fables (1665) and Dugdale's Monasticon Anglicanum (1655), Antiquities of Warwickshire(1656), and History of St Paul's Cathedral (1658) all have numerous plates by Hollar.

In March 1669 Hollar petitioned the King for permission to accompany Lord Henry Howard, Baron Howard of Castle Rising, on his embassy to Tangier as official artist. Some thirty-one drawings survive. Hollar died on 25 March 1677 at his house in Westminster and he was buried at St Margaret's, Westminster.

Source: Robert J.D. Harding, 'Hollar, Wenceslaus (1607-1677)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004. By permission of Oxford University Press -- http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/13549.

Former owners: possibly John Evelyn (see inscription above); W.A. Copinger.

There is a very detailed description of the manuscript in Richard Pennington, A descriptive catalogue of the etched work of Wenceslaus Hollar 1607-1677 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1982), pp. lxii-lxiv.