Panoramic View of Portsmouth
Hendrick Danckerts (The Hague 1625 - Amsterdam 1680)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
circa 1673 - 1675
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
1283 x 2032 mm
Place of origin
England
Order this imageCollection
Dyrham, Gloucestershire
NT 453827
Summary
Oil on canvas, Panoramic View of Portsmouth, by Hendrick Danckerts (The Hague 1625 - Amsterdam 1680), circa 1673–5. A panoramic view of Portsmouth, taken from the chalk ridge at Portsdown, probably around Purbrook or modern-day Waterlooville, and looking south towards Portsea Island, Portsmouth Harbour and Gosport. In the foreground a redcoat soldier asks the way of a man seated beside a road with cart tracks, horse-drawn carts and people walking to and fro (the pigments have since failed and turned blue). A fleet of ships (probably the king’s fleet) is at anchor between Portsmouth and Gosport. The fortification seen at far right may be Portchester Castle. A ship in full sail can be seen before the harbour mouth and ‘Old’ Portsmouth. The outline of the Domus Dei (Royal Garrison Church) may be visible. Southsea Castle lies just to the left of Portsmouth, facing Spithead and the wider Solent.
Full description
The Dutch artist Hendrick Danckerts was one of the most successful landscape painters in Britain in the decades following the Restoration (1660). Born and trained in The Hague, Danckerts specialised in estate portraiture, idealised Italianate landscapes, and views of historic and patriotic significance. He spent the 1650s studying in Rome before coming to England in around 1664, receiving royal commissions from Charles II and the Duke of York, later James II and VII, from 1665 to 1679. These included views of royal properties and estates, and a suite of views of the significant harbours and fortresses of England and Wales such as Portsmouth. Danckerts travelled widely and would have produced this image and others like it from drawings made on the spot, working them up to a large-scale composition in oil on canvas at his workshop. Permitted to copy paintings in the royal collection, he produced versions for elite patrons like the earls of Sandwich, Peterborough and Bedford, and for civil servants like the famous diarist and Secretary to the Admiralty, Samuel Pepys. Pepys was in fact first introduced to the artist through Thomas Povey (1613/14 – c.1705), William Blathwayt's uncle, their meeting recorded by Pepys on Wednesday 20 January 1668/69: 'This afternoon, before the play, I called with my wife at Dancre’s, the great landscape-painter, by Mr. Povy’s advice; and have bespoke him to come to take measure of my dining-room panels'. The following month Pepys wrote that he and Povey were 'away to Dancre’s, to speak something touching the pictures I am getting him to make for me.' (Monday 1 February 1668/69). Acquired by Thomas Povey or William Blathwayt, this view of Portsmouth is one of the large paintings by Danckerts known to have been part of the historical collection at Dyrham Park. Others were views of Windsor, Plymouth, Falmouth, Sheerness, and Chatham. All are listed in the catalogue of 1765 house sale (lots 14-19): ‘A View of a Sea Port, large. / A Ditto. 1 of these Views Falmouth, 2 of Plymouth, 1 of Portsmouth, 1 of Sheerness, and 1 of Chatham, all the said pictures by Henry Dankers’. It is possible that this view and others hung at Povey’s or Blathwayt’s London residences or offices before arriving at Dyrham. The ascribed date is given in accordance with associated views painted by Danckerts between about 1673 and 1675. The earliest is a view of Plymouth, signed and dated 1673, and today in the collection of Yale Center for British Art (B1976.7.105), which may have been one of the two views of that port described in the 1765 Dyrham sale catalogue. This is followed by a view of Falmouth harbour painted for Charles II in 1674, signed and dated, and two surviving views of Portsmouth produced for the king in and around 1675 (Royal Collection Trust, RCIN 402821, 406565 and 405156). The View of Portsmouth transports the viewer into the professional world of William Blathwayt by depicting the town and harbour from where, under his auspices, naval ships departed for military and colonial engagements around the world. It also illustrates the social and cultural networks in which Blathwayt and his uncle and mentor Thomas Povey operated. Both men were powerful colonial and military administrators, closely associated with monarchs Charles II and James II. Strategically located, Portsmouth has played a major role in national and international events for over 800 years. It was there that Henry VII constructed England’s first dry dock, beginning the port’s long association with the Royal Navy – one consolidated through Henry VIII’s establishment of a fleet which included the ill-fated flagship Mary Rose. During the English Civil War Portsmouth was held by a royalist faction before being laid siege to by Parliamentary forces. After his restoration to the throne, Charles II ordered the Dutch military engineer Bernard de Gomme to fortify and reconstruct the town, and chose the Domus Dei, seen here in the distance, to marry Catherine of Braganza in 1662. The Dockyard remains the home of HMS Victory, the oldest naval vessel still in commission (1765 –), and to almost two-thirds of the Royal Navy's surface ships.
Provenance
Possibly commissioned by Thomas Povey c.1673 and at an unknown date moved to Dyrham Park by William Blathwayt; listed in the catalogue of the Dyrham Park sale, 1765, within lots 14-19: ‘A View of a Sea Port, large. / A Ditto. 1 of these Views Falmouth, 2 of Plymouth, 1 of Portsmouth, 1 of Sheerness, and 1 of Chatham, all the said pictures by Henry Dankers’; probably Justin Robert Wynter Blathwayt (1913 - 2005); thence by descent; on loan to Dyrham Park by 2002; purchased by the National Trust for Dyrham Park in 2024, with support from a National Trust fund set up by the late Simon Sainsbury.
Makers and roles
Hendrick Danckerts (The Hague 1625 - Amsterdam 1680), artist
References
A Catalogue Of the Valuable Collection of Pictures of William Blathwayte, Esq. Which will be sold by Auction at Derham, in the County of Gloucester, on Monday the 18th of November Inst. and the three following Days [...] Thomas Joye, Auctioneer [1765], Second day, lots 14-19