The present picture, previously unrecorded, shows a panoramic view of the City before teh Great Fire of 2-4 September 1666. The traditional viewpoint for the known contemporary prints and pictures is to the south of the Old London Bridge, from Southwark and beyond. The present scene is viewed from the south west with the prominent tower of St. Olave's Chruch in the right foreground. The second distinctive difference is the viewpoint being from an imaginary hill which is in the location of the London Playhouses of the Swan, the Hope, the Rose and, most famously, Shakespeare's Globe, the Clink Prison and Winchester House. There are only four other images using this device in the Seventeenth Century. The north bank of the River Thames is seen from part of the Steel Yards to the Tower of London, down river. The medieval St. Paul's Cathedral is shown on the left centre. For discussion see I. Scouloudi, Panoramic Views of London 1600-1660, London, 1953.

We are grateful to Mireille Gallinou, Museum of London, for her help in cataloguing this lot.