A New View of Bankside

Summary

Wenceslaus Hollar’s depiction of the Bankside theatres in the Long View of London, 1647, is very well known, as is his preparatory drawing; now another sketch by Hollar of Bankside has come to light (see Plate 1A), and though it presents only the merest outlines of the theatres, it may help to reinforce certain notions concerning their structure. The sketch comes from a notebook of Hollar’s preserved in the John Rylands Library at Manchester (English MS. 883) which contains a large number of drawings in ink and pencil from many phases of Hollar’s career, beginning as early as 1626 with a view of Prague, the artist’s home town. Folio 36 of this notebook bears the signature Johannes Evelynus, with the inscription, ‘c’e que j’ai jay receivé / Vigilantia cum diligentia / 1641’, so it appears that the book once belonged to Evelyn who probably acquired it from Hollar soon after meeting him for the first time (according to the Diary) on 28 June 1641, when he visited Arundel House to sit for his portrait to Vanderborcht. Evelyn greatly admired Hollar’s work, and it may well be that, having acquired the sketchbook in 1641, he continued to paste in more drawings by Hollar over the years as he obtained them from the artist, with whom he developed an enduring friendship.