Somerset House, in its Original State

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Government Art Collection

The principal feature of this engraving, seen to the right of the composition, is the former building of Somerset House. To the left are the Savoy Chapel, the four towers of Old Northumberland House and Westminster Abbey, depicted before the addition of its 18th-century western towers.

Lettering on the print states that it is based on an original painting by Cornelis Bol, now in Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, which represents Somerset House before ‘the alterations made by Inigo Jones, to fit it for the use of Queen Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles 1st'.

Cornelis Bol was born in Antwerp. He was a pupil of painter Tobias Verhaecht. By 1611 he was in Haarlem, where he may have studied under marine artist Hendrick Vroom. In 1615 Bol was a master at the Guild of St Luke in Antwerp. He often travelled abroad and was living in Paris in 1624 and in London from c.1635. However, he was again active in Haarlem in 1637 and became a member of the guild there. He then returned to London, remaining from 1638 to c.1641. Engraver and antiquary G. Vertue records Bol’s paintings of ‘three views of London from the River side; Arundel house, Somersett [sic] house, Towner Lond [sic], Painted before the fire of London’, for diarist John Evelyn. In 1649 Bol re-joined the guild in Haarlem, where he later died.

Places

England, River Thames, London, Westminster Abbey, Somerset House, Savoy Palace / Hospital, Lambeth Palace, Westminster

Subjects

rowing boat, topography, townscape/cityscape, river, government building, sailboat

Materials & Techniques

engraving, coloured engraving

Artist

Cornelis Bol (c.1589 - after 1666)

Title

Somerset House, in its Original State

Date

published 11 October 1809

Medium

Coloured engraving

Dimensions

height: 29.90 cm, width: 41.40 cm

Acquisition

Purchased from the Parker Gallery, December 1935

Provenance

purchased from the Parker Gallery, 1935

GAC number

0/827A