Description

The etchings of Wenceslaus Hollar are not only of a remarkably high artistic standard, but also represent an important pictorial chronicle of seventeenth-century England. Numbering over 2700 they cover a vast range of subjects: cathedrals, ships, bird's-eye views of cities, scenes of the Thirty Years' War, butterflies, shells, women's costumes. Hollar drew portraits of his contemporaries, illustrated the Bible, Aesop's fables, Homer, and Virgil. Rembrandt apart, he was arguably the greatest, certainly the most skilful etcher of his day. This catalogue for the first time identifies and listes all the etchings of Hollar. Each print is fully described, and the various problems of the editions of the Dance of Death, of the costume prints, and of the Dugdale illustrations and the London maps are fully dealt with. Mr Pennington has also written the first comprehensive and accurate life of Hollar, and this appears at the beginning of the book.