| Johannes KIP Tortworth. One of a series depicting country houses and gardens, were issued in Kip's monumental topographical work, Le Nouveau Theatre de la Grande Bretagne, in London in 1724. 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 the majority of the plates for this work either after his own
designs or after the drawings of his fellow Dutchman, Leonard Knyff. Perhaps
most famous and beloved of all are his aerial views of English country
houses and estates where each plate depicts a country seat surrounded
by formal gardens and farmland. The name of the landlord is emblazoned
across the plate within a decorative banner and accompanied by the appropriate
coat of arms. Many of the houses and gardens are pictured in their seventeenth
century state before the great remodelling and landscaping of the mid
eighteenth century. The work therefore provides an invaluable historical
resource and is one of the most comprehensive and decorative topographical
studies attempted in the eighteenth century. |
