Description
The drawing is very well executed; however on close observation it is clear that there are difference’s with the engraving after Kip, in detail and perspective.
The linked careers of Jan Kip and Leonard Knyff made a specialty of engraved views of English country houses, represented in detail from the bird’s-eye view, a pictorial convention for topography. Their major work was Britannia Illustrata: Or Views of Several of the Queens Palaces, as Also of the Principal seats of the Nobility and Gentry of Great Britain, Curiously Engraven on 80 Copper Plates, London (1707, published in the winter of 1708 – 09). The volume is among the most important English topographical publications of the 18th century. Architecture is rendered with care, and the settings of parterres and radiating avenues driven through woods or planted across fields, garden paths gates and toolsheds are illustrated in detail, and staffed with figures and horses, coaches pulling into forecourts, water-craft on rivers, in line with the traditions of the Low Countries. Some of the plates are in the Siennese “map perspective”.
Hamstead Marshall manor house was one of the Seats of the Rt. honble William Lord Craven Barren Craven of Hamstead Marshall in the County of Bercks. The house was constructed in 1663 and destroyed by a fire in 1718.
The fascinating history of Hamstead Marshall can be read in the book, ‘Craven Country’, by Penelope Stokes.
