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Description

Beautiful little engraving of the south side of the courtyard of Arundel House, by perhaps the greatest visual recorder of 17th-century London, the Czech engraver Wenceslaus Hollar.

This engraving was done after a drawing by Adam Bierling, which was unusual for Hollar, who almost always engraved after his own drawings.

Hind (82) comments on the print: 

Shows a coach and six on the right, and a party of cavaliers in front of the door on the left. In the distance part of the south of the river is seen. The House as shown in the Bird's-eye Plan of the West Central District should be compared. This and the following are the only London views which are definitely singed by Hollar as after another master's drawings. The etching was done while Hollar was in Antwerp.

Arundel House originally belonged to the Bishops of Bath. In the reign of Edward VI it was in the hands of Lord Thomas Seymour, brother of the Protector Somerset, and after his beheadal was bought by the Early of Arundel.

Earlier, in his introductory essay, Hind (page 19) comments:

Two of Hollar's little London views, those of the Courtyard of Arundel House, ar signed as based on the drawings of Adam Alexius Bierling. Practically nothing is known of this Adam Bierling beyond his name on Hollar's etchings--on several of the others dating between 1646 and 1650, he appears as the publisher and printer (A.A. Bierling excudit.) Two of them bear a dedication from Bierling (one dated Antwerp, 1646), so that he was probably Hollar's employer, and not merely Hollar's printer. In fact, Hollar probably never really became an etcher who could command his market : he always seems to have worked as the drudge of publishers and printers.

Condition Description
Trimmed outside the neatline, as usual.
Reference
Hind 82, first and only state.