Old St. Paul's Cathedral, London, seen from the East

Old St. Paul's Cathedral, London, seen from the East

Wenceslaus Hollar

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This detailed, evocative drawing of an important British architectural monument, now gone, relates to a major commission that the artist worked on between 1656 and 1658. The antiquarian William Dugdale (1605–1686) had asked Hollar to create a set of fourteen prints documenting the interior and exterior of Old St. Paul’s Cathedral, London. These were to illustrate Dugdale’s ground breaking publication "The History of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London from its Foundation until these Times" (1658). The exacting nature of the commission meant that Hollar executed this drawing in careful stages, first scoring the perspective underpinnings of the architecture, then using pen and ink to describe the structure. Finally, he indicated shadows with brown and gray washes. While the Museum does not possess Dugdale’s History of St. Paul’s, the related etching does appears, together with others from the set, in Dugdale’s "Monasticon Anglicanum," volume III (1674) (44.41.3).

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Old St. Paul's Cathedral, London, seen from the EastOld St. Paul's Cathedral, London, seen from the EastOld St. Paul's Cathedral, London, seen from the EastOld St. Paul's Cathedral, London, seen from the EastOld St. Paul's Cathedral, London, seen from the East

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.