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Lot Essay
‘His [de Jongh’s] London views are far and away the most distinguished before those of Canaletto’
(John Hayes, 1956)
This superb panoramic view of Old London Bridge by Claude de Jongh is a rare contemporary record of the first stone bridge across the River Thames, and the only thoroughfare over the water until Westminster Bridge opened in 1750. In the variety and splendour of its buildings, Old London Bridge rivalled the Ponte Vecchio in Florence and the Pont au-Change in Paris. De Jongh was active as a landscape painter in both Utrecht and Haarlem, however, it is his paintings of London, which were based on topographical drawings executed during short sketching tours in England, that are considered his finest works and his most significant achievements as an artist. The composition of this painting relates to what is widely considered to be de Jongh’s masterpiece – his monumental View of Old London Bridge in the Iveagh Bequest at Kenwood, which is signed and dated 1630 (fig. 1). The present painting is one of only two renditions of the subject by de Jongh to remain in private hands. Two further variants are in the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, and in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. In each instance, working from his original pen drawing of 1627 (fig. 2; London, Guildhall Library), de Jongh approached the subject afresh, varying the tone, sky and overall atmosphere of the painting, reflecting the latest developments in Dutch landscape painting.
The earliest mention of de Jongh occurs in 1627, when he is recorded as a member of in the Painters’ Guild at Utrecht. He worked in Haarlem for a short but crucial period, in the years around 1630, when a new style of landscape painting was being developed under the influence of Esaias van de Velde, before returning to Utrecht where he is believed to have practiced until his death in 1663. His activity in England is documented through his topographical drawings, which indicate that he made several short sketching tours in search of popular subjects and motifs suitable for working up later as paintings: the earliest dated drawing, of 1615, depicts St Augustine’s Monastery, Canterbury (Utrecht, Central Museum); with sketches of Westminster from 1625 (The Royal Collection, Windsor Castle); a panoramic drawing of Old London Bridge spread over two sheets dated 1627 (London, Guildhall Library), which formed the basis for this painting; and further sheets dated 1628. Other surviving oils worked up from his drawings include two views of the Thames at Westminster in the Yale Center for British Art. De Jongh’s views of London are important topographically, since they bridge the gap between Claes Visscher’s panoramic engraved view of London from the south bank of the Thames, first published in 1616 (fig. 3), and the drawings and prints of Wenceslaus Hollar, who died in London in 1677.
In his account of The Thames about 1750, Hugo Phillips described Old London bridge as: 'that beautiful old relic...unquestionably the most picturesque and romantic feature of early London...with overhanging houses supported on brackets - a veritable street upon the water' (London, 1951, pp. 31 and 49). It was commissioned by King Henry II after the murder of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, and had a chapel at its centre dedicated to Becket, which became the official starting point of pilgrimage to his Canterbury shrine. Begun in 1176, under the supervision of architect Peter, Chaplain of St Mary Colechurch, its appearance evolved over the centuries. As fires swept across the bridge (the most serious in 1212, 1633 and 1725), the buildings were consequently re-modelled in the current architectural style. In 1666, the houses on London Bridge were saved from the Great Fire because an earlier fire of 1633 had destroyed the houses near the north bank, creating a fire-break. The bridge was 8 meters wide and about 255 meters long, supported by 19 irregularly spaced arches. By the Tudor period, it supported around 200 buildings, some of which stood seven storeys high, while others overhung the river by up to two meters.
From north (left) to south (right), the painting incorporates: The Tower of London; the tower of St. Magnus; the bridge with Nonesuch House (a five storey Renaissance building imported from Holland in 1577) featured prominently at its centre, immediately followed by the drawbridge (which was inserted to accommodate Nonesuch House and had the added benefit of increasing the City of London’s defences and allowing larger vessels access to the upper part of the Thames for the first time in hundreds of years); Southwark Gate (where the heads of traitors were exhibited on spikes until 1660, including William Wallace in 1305, Thomas More in 1535 and Thomas Cromwell in 1540) is obscured from view; but the tower of St. Olave’s Southwark; and Southwark Cathedral are clearly visible on the south bank. Southwark Cathedral does not feature in either the 1627 pen drawing, or two early paintings at Kenwood (dated 1630) and Yale (dated 1632), but is introduced here and in the variant in the Victoria & Albert Museum (dated 1650).
De Jongh employed a degree of artistic licence in the original pen drawing, which was clearly always intended to serve as a design for paintings, rather than to be used by an engraver of maps or prospects: for example, the arches under the bridge are shown as being rounded and fairly regular in character, whereas in reality they were pointed and uneven both in height and width. Further artistic liberties were taken in the finished painting to increase its overall pictorial effect: namely, the drawbridge is moved from the 7th to the 9th arch, which balances the composition and has the added advantage of centralising the magnificent building of Nonesuch House. De Jongh also introduced a building in the left foreground of the painting to frame the composition and increase the illusion of depth. It is clear that de Jongh was still working from the same 1627 drawing in the later renditions of the subject, here and in the Victoria & Albert Museum, without further reference to the actual site, since they contain the block of houses on the north side of the bridge that was destroyed in the fire of February 1633. In his 1956 Burlington Magazine article, Hayes suggested that these inaccuracies not only suggested that de Jongh’s aims were primarily pictorial, rather than topographical, but also indicated that his patrons were not English, but Dutch, for whom ‘the suggestion of picturesque qualities or interesting historical associations was sufficient’ (op. cit., p. 7). Hollar’s productions for the English market, by contrast, tended to possess a greater fidelity to detail.
De Jongh imbued his painting with a silvery tone and atmosphere, which show the impact of the work of his Dutch contemporaries, notably Jan van Goyen. Hayes commented that de Jongh ‘brought with him a feeling for atmosphere and for the grey skies of the north which hint at his Haarlem origins, and that were equalled by few of the later Anglo-Dutch painters’ (ibid., p. 3). In his earliest painting of the subject in oil, the picture now at Kenwood, de Jongh employed a cooler, more monochromatic palette, with strongly defined reflections of the bridge and buildings in the glassy still waters of the Thames. The clouds are thick and heavy, and hang low in the sky. In this later rendition, the palette is more luminous and varied, and the reflections of the bridge and buildings have been softened. The clouds, which are lighter and more feathery, appear to dance across the sky and are reflected in the shimmering waters below, enlivening the whole composition. These changes echo stylistic developments in the work of Jan van Goyen, especially in the move from a monochromatic to a more luminous palette.
By the eighteenth century Old London Bridge was acting more like a dam than a modern bridge, and the pent up current roaring through the narrow spaces was gradually tearing up the river bed and making the structure unstable. Between 1758 and 1762, work began to remove its houses and enlarge its central arch. The debate surrounding the bridge's future sparked an artistic response, as painters set about preserving a record of this picturesque old relic. Canaletto, who was in London during this period (1746-1755), made a pen and ink and wash drawing of the bridge in the 1750s (British Museum, London), while Samuel Scott executed eleven paintings of the bridge from 1747 (R. Kingzett, 'A Catalogue of the works of Samuel Scott', The Walpole Society, XXXXVIII, 1982, pp. 43-48, A-K). Despite extensive attempts to preserve the bridge, however, it was eventually demolished in 1831. This painting constitutes an important historic document by an artist who achieved a place both in the history of English topographical art and of Dutch landscape painting.
Wynn Ellis (1790-1875), who owned this painting before it entered the Northbrook collection, was an entrepreneurial silk merchant, politician and collector. He amassed a sizable collection of pictures, totalling 402 Old Masters, which he left to the nation on his death in 1875. The Trustees of the National Gallery selected 44 works, predominantly by seventeenth century Dutch artists, including Ruisdael, Jan van de Cappelle, Willem van der Velde and Jan van der Heyden, which considerably strengthened this area of the Collection. The remainder of the Old Masters, together with his modern pictures, watercolours, porcelain, furniture and decorative arts were sold at Christie’s in a five day sale in 1876. The sale included other notable paintings, including Gainsborough’s portrait of Georgina, Duchess of Devonshire, which was bought by Agnews for the staggering sum of £10,605 (Derbyshire, Chatsworth).
(John Hayes, 1956)
This superb panoramic view of Old London Bridge by Claude de Jongh is a rare contemporary record of the first stone bridge across the River Thames, and the only thoroughfare over the water until Westminster Bridge opened in 1750. In the variety and splendour of its buildings, Old London Bridge rivalled the Ponte Vecchio in Florence and the Pont au-Change in Paris. De Jongh was active as a landscape painter in both Utrecht and Haarlem, however, it is his paintings of London, which were based on topographical drawings executed during short sketching tours in England, that are considered his finest works and his most significant achievements as an artist. The composition of this painting relates to what is widely considered to be de Jongh’s masterpiece – his monumental View of Old London Bridge in the Iveagh Bequest at Kenwood, which is signed and dated 1630 (fig. 1). The present painting is one of only two renditions of the subject by de Jongh to remain in private hands. Two further variants are in the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, and in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. In each instance, working from his original pen drawing of 1627 (fig. 2; London, Guildhall Library), de Jongh approached the subject afresh, varying the tone, sky and overall atmosphere of the painting, reflecting the latest developments in Dutch landscape painting.
The earliest mention of de Jongh occurs in 1627, when he is recorded as a member of in the Painters’ Guild at Utrecht. He worked in Haarlem for a short but crucial period, in the years around 1630, when a new style of landscape painting was being developed under the influence of Esaias van de Velde, before returning to Utrecht where he is believed to have practiced until his death in 1663. His activity in England is documented through his topographical drawings, which indicate that he made several short sketching tours in search of popular subjects and motifs suitable for working up later as paintings: the earliest dated drawing, of 1615, depicts St Augustine’s Monastery, Canterbury (Utrecht, Central Museum); with sketches of Westminster from 1625 (The Royal Collection, Windsor Castle); a panoramic drawing of Old London Bridge spread over two sheets dated 1627 (London, Guildhall Library), which formed the basis for this painting; and further sheets dated 1628. Other surviving oils worked up from his drawings include two views of the Thames at Westminster in the Yale Center for British Art. De Jongh’s views of London are important topographically, since they bridge the gap between Claes Visscher’s panoramic engraved view of London from the south bank of the Thames, first published in 1616 (fig. 3), and the drawings and prints of Wenceslaus Hollar, who died in London in 1677.
In his account of The Thames about 1750, Hugo Phillips described Old London bridge as: 'that beautiful old relic...unquestionably the most picturesque and romantic feature of early London...with overhanging houses supported on brackets - a veritable street upon the water' (London, 1951, pp. 31 and 49). It was commissioned by King Henry II after the murder of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, and had a chapel at its centre dedicated to Becket, which became the official starting point of pilgrimage to his Canterbury shrine. Begun in 1176, under the supervision of architect Peter, Chaplain of St Mary Colechurch, its appearance evolved over the centuries. As fires swept across the bridge (the most serious in 1212, 1633 and 1725), the buildings were consequently re-modelled in the current architectural style. In 1666, the houses on London Bridge were saved from the Great Fire because an earlier fire of 1633 had destroyed the houses near the north bank, creating a fire-break. The bridge was 8 meters wide and about 255 meters long, supported by 19 irregularly spaced arches. By the Tudor period, it supported around 200 buildings, some of which stood seven storeys high, while others overhung the river by up to two meters.
From north (left) to south (right), the painting incorporates: The Tower of London; the tower of St. Magnus; the bridge with Nonesuch House (a five storey Renaissance building imported from Holland in 1577) featured prominently at its centre, immediately followed by the drawbridge (which was inserted to accommodate Nonesuch House and had the added benefit of increasing the City of London’s defences and allowing larger vessels access to the upper part of the Thames for the first time in hundreds of years); Southwark Gate (where the heads of traitors were exhibited on spikes until 1660, including William Wallace in 1305, Thomas More in 1535 and Thomas Cromwell in 1540) is obscured from view; but the tower of St. Olave’s Southwark; and Southwark Cathedral are clearly visible on the south bank. Southwark Cathedral does not feature in either the 1627 pen drawing, or two early paintings at Kenwood (dated 1630) and Yale (dated 1632), but is introduced here and in the variant in the Victoria & Albert Museum (dated 1650).
De Jongh employed a degree of artistic licence in the original pen drawing, which was clearly always intended to serve as a design for paintings, rather than to be used by an engraver of maps or prospects: for example, the arches under the bridge are shown as being rounded and fairly regular in character, whereas in reality they were pointed and uneven both in height and width. Further artistic liberties were taken in the finished painting to increase its overall pictorial effect: namely, the drawbridge is moved from the 7th to the 9th arch, which balances the composition and has the added advantage of centralising the magnificent building of Nonesuch House. De Jongh also introduced a building in the left foreground of the painting to frame the composition and increase the illusion of depth. It is clear that de Jongh was still working from the same 1627 drawing in the later renditions of the subject, here and in the Victoria & Albert Museum, without further reference to the actual site, since they contain the block of houses on the north side of the bridge that was destroyed in the fire of February 1633. In his 1956 Burlington Magazine article, Hayes suggested that these inaccuracies not only suggested that de Jongh’s aims were primarily pictorial, rather than topographical, but also indicated that his patrons were not English, but Dutch, for whom ‘the suggestion of picturesque qualities or interesting historical associations was sufficient’ (op. cit., p. 7). Hollar’s productions for the English market, by contrast, tended to possess a greater fidelity to detail.
De Jongh imbued his painting with a silvery tone and atmosphere, which show the impact of the work of his Dutch contemporaries, notably Jan van Goyen. Hayes commented that de Jongh ‘brought with him a feeling for atmosphere and for the grey skies of the north which hint at his Haarlem origins, and that were equalled by few of the later Anglo-Dutch painters’ (ibid., p. 3). In his earliest painting of the subject in oil, the picture now at Kenwood, de Jongh employed a cooler, more monochromatic palette, with strongly defined reflections of the bridge and buildings in the glassy still waters of the Thames. The clouds are thick and heavy, and hang low in the sky. In this later rendition, the palette is more luminous and varied, and the reflections of the bridge and buildings have been softened. The clouds, which are lighter and more feathery, appear to dance across the sky and are reflected in the shimmering waters below, enlivening the whole composition. These changes echo stylistic developments in the work of Jan van Goyen, especially in the move from a monochromatic to a more luminous palette.
By the eighteenth century Old London Bridge was acting more like a dam than a modern bridge, and the pent up current roaring through the narrow spaces was gradually tearing up the river bed and making the structure unstable. Between 1758 and 1762, work began to remove its houses and enlarge its central arch. The debate surrounding the bridge's future sparked an artistic response, as painters set about preserving a record of this picturesque old relic. Canaletto, who was in London during this period (1746-1755), made a pen and ink and wash drawing of the bridge in the 1750s (British Museum, London), while Samuel Scott executed eleven paintings of the bridge from 1747 (R. Kingzett, 'A Catalogue of the works of Samuel Scott', The Walpole Society, XXXXVIII, 1982, pp. 43-48, A-K). Despite extensive attempts to preserve the bridge, however, it was eventually demolished in 1831. This painting constitutes an important historic document by an artist who achieved a place both in the history of English topographical art and of Dutch landscape painting.
Wynn Ellis (1790-1875), who owned this painting before it entered the Northbrook collection, was an entrepreneurial silk merchant, politician and collector. He amassed a sizable collection of pictures, totalling 402 Old Masters, which he left to the nation on his death in 1875. The Trustees of the National Gallery selected 44 works, predominantly by seventeenth century Dutch artists, including Ruisdael, Jan van de Cappelle, Willem van der Velde and Jan van der Heyden, which considerably strengthened this area of the Collection. The remainder of the Old Masters, together with his modern pictures, watercolours, porcelain, furniture and decorative arts were sold at Christie’s in a five day sale in 1876. The sale included other notable paintings, including Gainsborough’s portrait of Georgina, Duchess of Devonshire, which was bought by Agnews for the staggering sum of £10,605 (Derbyshire, Chatsworth).