Page:Catalogue of a collection of early drawings and pictures of London, with some contemporary furniture (1920).djvu/17

 this view has a look of nature, the style also being free and skilful. The artist is Anthonie Van den Wyngaerde, now generally held to have been a Fleming in the train of Philip II. The second Tudor view, which is at Hatfield House and belongs to the Marquess of Salisbury, is an oil picture, also by a Flemish artist, Joris Hoefnagel. It was rather poorly described by George Corner in a paper read before members of the Surrey Archaeological Society in 1858, and was in the Tudor Exhibition at the New Gallery in 1890, being then called Horsleydown Fair; but in all probability it represents a marriage fête by the old church of St. Mary Magdalen, Bermondsey, which has since been rebuilt excepting the lower part of the mediaeval tower. The ground between the church and the river is portrayed with much detail, and the scene is full of life and incident. The Tower of London appears in the distance. Hoefnagel, born at Antwerp, was responsible for many beautiful paintings, mostly of the miniature kind, and drew plans for Braun and Hogenberg's "Civitates Orbis Terrarum," published at Cologne in 1572, among them that representing London. On this perhaps the plan ascribed to Agas was based; the alternative being that they both owe their origin in some degree to a still earlier plan, all trace of which has disappeared.

In the seventeenth century pictures of London subjects begin to be fairly plentiful. Among early ones the curious diptych of old St. Paul's, dating from the time of James I and belonging to the Society of Antiquaries, may be mentioned. Although artless and entirely lacking in perspective, it contains details which are not to be found elsewhere, and there is a quaint London view at the back. Later in that century a series of accurate etchings by Hollar throw much light on the London of his day. About the same time also a few large and realistic pictures of London were painted, of which we are able to show two or three examples.

Soon after 1720 the charm of London scenes came to be more generally recognized, and from then onwards her river, her parks, her streets and public buildings, have been depicted times innumerable, and