Wenceslaus Hollar (1607-1677), Etcher

Sitter associated with 9 portraits
Artist associated with 511 portraits
Hollar left his native Prague in 1627. He spent several years travelling and working in Germany before his patron, the Earl of Arundel brought him to London in 1636. During the civil wars, Hollar fought on the royalist side, after which he spent the years 1644-52 in Antwerp. Hollar's views of London form an important record of the city before the Great Fire of 1666. Among his most ambitious projects was a set of plates of women's costumes, entitled Ornatus muliebris Anglicanus, or, The severall habits of English women from the nobilitie to the country woman (1640). He was prolific and engraved a wide range of subjects, producing nearly 2,800 prints, numerous watercolours and many drawings.