Johannes Kip after Leonard Knyff

Knowle in the Parish of Sevenoaks in Kent being the mansion house of Charles Sackvile, Baron Buckhurst, Viscount Cranfield, Earl of Dorset & Middle.x & Knight of the Garter ...

19 x 13.5 inches

A copperplate engraving depicting Knole House and gardens in Kent. This plate was issued in Johannes Kip's monumental topographical work, Le Nouveau Theatre de la Grande Bretagne, in London in 1724.

Knole (Knowle) was, and remains, one of the largest private houses in England. It is set in a 400 acre deer park and this print shows the deer grazing outside the garden walls much as they do today. It was originally built in the late C15th as a bishop's palace but modified several times throughout the C16th and particularly early C17th. The print is dedicated to Charles Sackvile (along with his many titles!) and remains in the hands of the Sackville family to this day. It is reputed to have over 365 rooms thereby permitting the occupants to visit a different room on very day of the year! The early eighteenth century in England was dominated by the work of a group of Dutch artists and engravers who came to live and work in London. It was in 1707 that David Mortier offered for sale the first series of large volumes of topographical engravings of English towns and estates initially under the collective name of Britannia Illustrata (1707) and later, from 1715 onwards, Le Nouveau Theatre de la Grande Bretagne. Kip engraved most of the plates for this work either after his own designs or after the drawings of his fellow Dutchman, Leonard Knyff.