Old London Bridge, viewed from the south

This view of the southern end of Old London Bridge by Claude de Jongh is a rare contemporary record of the first stone bridge across the River Thames, which constituted 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. De Jongh’s views of London are important topographically, since they bridge the gap between Claes Jansz. Visscher’s panoramic engraved view of London from the south bank of the Thames, first published in 1616, and the drawings and prints of Wenceslaus Hollar, who died in London in 1677. In his 1956 article on the artist in the Burlington Magazine, John Hayles declared that de Jongh’s London views 'are far and away the most distinguished before those of Canaletto’ (J. Hayles, 'Claude de Jongh', The Burlington Magazine, XCVIII, 1956, p. 11).

The earliest mention of de Jongh occurs in 1627, when he is recorded as a member of the Painters’ Guild in 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 practised 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: St Augustine’s Monastery, Canterbury, his earliest dated drawing, of 1615 (Utrecht, Centraal Museum); sketches of Westminster dated 1625 (Windsor Castle, The Royal Collection); a panoramic drawing of Old London Bridge spread over two sheets dated 1627 (fig. 1; London, Guildhall Library) and further sheets dated 1628.

This painting was worked up following his return to Holland with the aid of his 1627 sketch of the bridge. He also made paintings of the whole expanse of the bridge, the most celebrated being his monumental work now in the Iveagh Bequest at Kenwood, which is signed and dated 1630. Further variants are in the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, dated 1632; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, dated 1650; and a private collection, dated 1650 (sold Christie’s, 4 July 2019, lot 9). In each instance, de Jongh approached the subject afresh, varying the tone, sky and overall atmosphere of the painting, reflecting the latest developments in Dutch landscape painting. Dated ‘1636’, the present oil is closest in handling and tonality to the painting in Yale. Having chosen to focus on one specific aspect of the bridge in this painting, de Jongh introduced a structure in the right foreground to frame the composition and increase the illusion of depth. De Jongh employed a degree of artistic licence in the original pen drawing and subsequent oil paintings, for example the arches under the bridge are shown rounded and fairly regular in character, whereas in reality they were pointed and uneven both in height and width. In his 1956 Burlington Magazine article, Hayes argued 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).

Old London Bridge 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 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 metres wide and about 255 metres long with 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 metres. 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. Despite extensive attempts to preserve the bridge, it was eventually demolished in 1831.