Visscher panorama

A panorama of London by Claes Visscher, 1616. Old St Paul's Cathedral had lost its spire by this time. The two theatres in the foreground on the Southwark side of the River Thames are The Bear Garden and The Globe. The large church in the foreground is St Mary Overie, now Southwark Cathedral.

The Visscher panorama is an engraving by Claes Visscher (1586-1652) depicting a panorama of London. It shows an imagined view of London in around 1600. The engraving was first published in Amsterdam in 1616, with the title "Londinum Florentissima Britanniae Urbs Toto Orbe Celeberrimum Emporiumque".

Overview

The engraving comprises four separate plates creating a continuous panorama over 2 metres (6.6 ft) long. It provides one of the best views of London before the Great Fire in 1666. From a viewpoint on the south bank of the River Thames, it shows (from west to east, left to right) mansions on the north bank of the river: Whitehall Palace, York House, Durham House, old Somerset House, Burley House, Arundel House and Essex House, then Old St Paul's Cathedral without the spire which was lost after it was struck by lightning in 1561, the low-rise medieval City of London dominated by the spires and steeples of its churches, Old London Bridge covered by shops and houses, and the Tower of London and St Katharine Docks, with distant views of Harrow on the Hill, windmills at Hampstead, and the spires of Hackney and Stepney. Prominent buildings depicted on the south bank are three theatres, The Swan, the The Globe and the Beargarden, and the churches of St Mary Overie (rebuilt after a fire in 1212, later to become Southwark Cathedral), and St Olave's. There are many ships in the river. In the sky above the city, to the right of St Paul's, are angels holding a banderole with the title "London", to either side appear angels bearing trumpets decorated with the royal coat of arms and the arms of the City of London and then in the upper corners cartouches framed with cherubs.

Visscher probably never visited London and made his view from a combination of maps and map-views with a various dates, so the engraving uses a variety of viewpoints. As a result, it contains some inaccuracies: in particular, Visscher shows the Globe Theatre as octagonal, whereas archaeological evidence shows it was 20-sided, and the river is straightened to simplify the view. The engraving may be based on John Norden's Civitas Londini from around 1600, printed around 1615, the only complete surviving copy of which is in the Gardie Collection at the Royal Library in Stockholm, now held by the Nationalmuseum.

A similar engraving by Wenceslas Hollar in 1647 depicts a similar view, on six plates, Long View of London from Bankside, based on drawings done by Hollar in London in the early 1640s, from the tower of St Mary Overie. Hollar's panorama has a single viewpoint, and shows the River Thames curving sinuously from left to right past the viewpoint.

The Royal Great Seal used from 1663 to 1672 shows Charles II on horseback, with a panorama of London behind, based on Visscher's print.

In 2014 Zimbabwe-born artist Robin Reynolds set out to redraw the Visscher panorama, arranging modern London on the quirky Visscher landscape. The work is complete and is on display at the Guildhall Art Gallery, London.

References

• The Visscher Panorama of London in 1616 (high quality coloured image)
• Impression of Visscher's original plate made 1880, British Museum
• Victorian etched facsimile of Visscher's London from 1846, Museum of London
• london&numpages=87&page=1 Victorian copy from 1848, British Museum
• Discovering London's Buildings: With Twelve Walks, John Bold, Tanis Hinchcliffe, p. 22-23
• Shakespeare's Globe Rebuilt edited by J. R. Mulryne, Margaret Shewring, p. 31, 38