The Visscher panorama is an engraving by
Claes Visscher (1586-1652) depicting a
panorama of London
The city of London has long been a subject for panoramas by artists, mapmakers, and topographers. Many of their works have this as their title.
History
The earliest topographical drawings preceded maps according to modern definition, although they ...
. It shows an imagined view of
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
in around 1600. The engraving was first published in
Amsterdam
Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...
in 1616, with the title "Londinum Florentissima Britanniae Urbs Toto Orbe Celeberrimum Emporiumque".
Overview
The engraving comprises four separate plates creating a continuous
panorama
A panorama (formed from Greek πᾶν "all" + ὅραμα "view") is any wide-angle view or representation of a physical space, whether in painting, drawing, photography, film, seismic images, or 3D modeling. The word was originally coined in ...
over long. It provides one of the best views of London before the
Great Fire in 1666. From a viewpoint on the south bank of the
River Thames
The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, se ...
, it shows (from west to east, left to right) mansions on the north bank of the river:
Whitehall Palace
The Palace of Whitehall (also spelt White Hall) at Westminster was the main residence of the English monarchs from 1530 until 1698, when most of its structures, except notably Inigo Jones's Banqueting House of 1622, were destroyed by fire. Hen ...
,
York House,
Durham House, old
Somerset House
Somerset House is a large Neoclassical complex situated on the south side of the Strand in central London, overlooking the River Thames, just east of Waterloo Bridge. The Georgian era quadrangle was built on the site of a Tudor palace ("O ...
,
Burley House
Burley may refer to:
People
* Burley (surname)
* Burley Mitchell, chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court
Places England
* Burley, Hampshire, a village and civil parish
* Burley, Leeds, an inner city area of Leeds
* Burley, Rutla ...
,
Arundel House
Arundel House was a London town-house or palace located between the Strand and the River Thames, near the Church of St Clement Danes.
History
During the Middle Ages it was the town house of the Bishops of Bath and Wells, when it was kno ...
and
Essex House, then
Old St Paul's Cathedral
Old St Paul's Cathedral was the cathedral of the City of London that, until the Great Fire of London, Great Fire of 1666, stood on the site of the present St Paul's Cathedral. Built from 1087 to 1314 and dedicated to Paul of Tarsus, Saint Paul, ...
without the spire which was lost after it was struck by lightning in 1561, the low-rise medieval
City of London
The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London fr ...
dominated by the spires and steeples of its
churches,
Old London Bridge
Several bridges named London Bridge have spanned the River Thames between the City of London and Southwark, in central London. The current crossing, which opened to traffic in 1973, is a box girder bridge built from concrete and steel. It rep ...
covered by shops and houses, and the
Tower of London
The Tower of London, officially His Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress of the Tower of London, is a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, which is separa ...
and
St Katharine Docks
St Katharine Docks is a former dock and now a mixed-used district in Central London, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets and within the East End. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames, immediately downstream of the Tower of London an ...
, with distant views of
Harrow on the Hill
Harrow on the Hill is a locality and historic village in the borough of Harrow in Greater London, England. The name refers to Harrow Hill, ,Mills, A., ''Dictionary of London Place Names'', (2001) and is located some half a mile south of the mod ...
, windmills at
Hampstead
Hampstead () is an area in London, which lies northwest of Charing Cross, and extends from Watling Street, the A5 road (Roman Watling Street) to Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland. The area forms the northwest part of the Lon ...
, and the spires of
Hackney and
Stepney
Stepney is a district in the East End of London in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The district is no longer officially defined, and is usually used to refer to a relatively small area. However, for much of its history the place name appl ...
. Prominent buildings depicted on the south bank are three theatres,
The Swan
A swan is a bird of the genus ''Cygnus'' (true swans) or ''Coscoroba'' (coscoroba swans).
Swan, swans, or The Swan may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Film and television
* ''The Swan'' (1925 film), a 1925 silent film
* ''The Swa ...
,
The Globe and the
Beargarden
The Beargarden was a facility for bear-baiting, bull-baiting, and other "animal sports" in the London area during the 16th and 17th centuries, from the Elizabethan era to the English Restoration period. Baiting is a blood sport where an animal ...
, and the churches of
St Mary Overie
Southwark Cathedral ( ) or The Cathedral and Collegiate Church of St Saviour and St Mary Overie, Southwark, London, lies on the south bank of the River Thames close to London Bridge. It is the mother church of the Anglican Diocese of Southwark. ...
(rebuilt after a fire in 1212, later to become Southwark Cathedral), and
St Olave's. There are many ships in the river. In the sky above the city, to the right of St Paul's, are angels holding a
banderole
A banderole (, "little banner") is a comparatively small but long flag, historically used by knights and on ships, and as a heraldic device for representing bishops.
Bannerol, in its main uses is the same as banderole, and is the term especiall ...
with the title "London", to either side appear angels bearing trumpets decorated with the
royal coat of arms and the
arms of the City of London and then in the upper corners
cartouche
In Egyptian hieroglyphs, a cartouche is an oval with a line at one end tangent to it, indicating that the text enclosed is a royal name. The first examples of the cartouche are associated with pharaohs at the end of the Third Dynasty, but the fea ...
s framed with cherubs.
Visscher probably never visited London. There are various theories as to how the image was compiled. One is that he worked from a combination of maps and map-views with a various dates, so the engraving uses a variety of viewpoints. As a result, it contains some inaccuracies: in particular, Visscher shows the Globe Theatre as octagonal, whereas archaeological evidence shows it was 20-sided, and the river is straightened to simplify the view. The engraving may be based on
John Norden
John Norden (1625) was an English cartographer, chorographer and antiquary. He planned (but did not complete) a series of county maps and accompanying county histories of England, the '' Speculum Britanniae''. He was also a prolific writer ...
's ''Civitas Londini'' from around 1600, printed around 1615, the only complete surviving copy of which is in the
Gardie Collection at the
Royal Library in Stockholm, now held by the
Nationalmuseum
Nationalmuseum (or National Museum of Fine Arts) is the national gallery of Sweden, located on the peninsula Blasieholmen in central Stockholm.
The museum's operations stretches far beyond the borders of Blasieholmen, the nationalmuseum manag ...
. Another is that he himself had no part in composing the view, and instead worked from sketches that were compiled several years before they passed into his hands. One possibility is that they were the work of his publisher, Jodocus Hondius, who spent several years in London. It's equally possible that they were the work of Hondius's brother-in-law, Pieter van den Keere, who also lived and worked in London, and who in the same year (1616) produced a panorama of Istanbul (then known as Constantinople) in precisely the same style - that is to say, under a heavy headline, and accompanied by tracts of Latin text arranged in 16 columns. Moreover there further is evidence, in the engraving styles, to suggest that Visscher and Van den Keere collaborated, since the same hand is, in places, at work in both the London and Istanbul panoramas.
A similar engraving of London by
Wenceslas Hollar
Wenceslaus Hollar (23 July 1607 – 25 March 1677) was a prolific and accomplished Bohemian graphic artist of the 17th century, who spent much of his life in England. He is known to German speakers as ; and to Czech speakers as . He is particu ...
in 1647 depicts a similar view, on six plates, ''
Long View of London from Bankside
''Long View of London from Bankside'' is a panoramic etching made by Wenceslas Hollar in Antwerp in 1647. It depicts a panorama of London, based on drawings done while Hollar was in London in the early 1640s. Unlike earlier panoramas of London, ...
'', based on drawings done by Hollar in London in the early 1640s, from the tower of St Mary Overie. Hollar's panorama has a single viewpoint, and shows the River Thames curving sinuously from left to right past the viewpoint.
The Royal Great Seal used from 1663 to 1672 shows
Charles II on horseback, with a panorama of London behind, based on Visscher's print.
In 2014 Zimbabwe-born artist Robin Reynolds set out to redraw the Visscher panorama, arranging modern London on the quirky Visscher landscape. The work was displayed at the Guildhall Art Gallery as part of the City of London's Shakespeare400 and Great Fire anniversary celebrations.
References
{{Reflist
The Visscher Panorama of London in 1616(high quality coloured image)
Impression of Visscher's original plate made 1880 British Museum
Victorian etched facsimile of Visscher's ''London'' from 1846 Museum of London
*
london&numpages=87&page=1 Victorian copy from 1848 British Museum
Discovering London's Buildings: With Twelve Walks John Bold, Tanis Hinchcliffe, p. 22-23
Shakespeare's Globe Rebuiltedited by J. R. Mulryne, Margaret Shewring, p. 31, 38
Panoramic prints
London in popular culture
1616 works
17th-century engravings