The Hague – Georg Balthasar Probst + Friedrich Bernhard Werner, c. 1745

VIEW OF THE HAGUE ON THE APPROACH FROM DELFT

“Graven-Haag”, copper engraving after a design by Friedrich Bernhard Werner, published by Georg Balthasar Probst around 1745. Beneath the city profile is a key identifying 23 landmarks. Among those mentioned are the remarkably open woodland extending right up to the houses, the canal along which boats travel to and from Delft every hour, and the neatly brick-paved road to Rijswijk and Delft. Coloured by a later hand. Size: 34 × 96.5 cm.

Werner (1690–1776) had a colourful career before becoming a freelance artist for the publishing houses of Augsburg. Among other occupations, he worked as a soldier, a Wunderdoktor or ‘miracle doctor’, a translator of operas and a surveyor. He travelled extensively through Poland, Prussia, Pomerania, Germany, Italy, France and the Netherlands, making designs for his prints of cities, churches, palaces and castles.

Probst (1673–1748), besides being renowned for his panoramas, is also known for the hundreds of vue d’optique prints he published in Augsburg, Paris and London. Most of these appeared under imperial privilege (“l’Académie Imperiale d’Empire des Arts liberaux avec Privilege de Sa Majesté”).

Price: Euro 2.950,-