Pevensey Castle, from "English Views"
1652–77
Medium
Etching, third state of three
Dimensions
Sheet: 2 7/16 × 5 3/8 in. (6.2 × 13.7 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Purchase, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, 1917
Accession Number
17.50.17-398
Tags
Art Historical Context
Wenceslaus Hollar’s *Pevense Castle* belongs to his series “English Views,” between 1652 and1677. A Bohemian-born artist who much of his career in England, Hollar was renowned for his meticulous topographical etchings that recorded the nation’s historic sites with remarkable. This small print, measuring just over five inches wide, captures the weathered ruins of Pevensey Castle in Sussex, a site whose Roman Norman remains had long stood as symbols of England’s layered past. Executed in etching and known in its third state, the work demonstrates Hollar’s skill at rendering crumbling stone, dis...
About the Artist
Wenceslaus Hollar · 1607–1677
Wenceslaus Hollar (1607-1677) was a prolific Bohemian etcher who became one of the most accomplished printmakers of the seventeenth century. Born in Prague, he trained under Matthäus Merian in Frankfurt before entering the service of Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, in 1636. Hollar spent most of his career in England, where he produced approximately 2,740 etchings documenting an extraordinary range...