View of Whitehall, with the Banqueting House and the Holbein Gate

After an original painting by Antonio Joli.

This small and colourful painting depicts Whitehall from the northwest, engagingly populated by horse-drawn carriages and London townsfolk. The view illustrates many interesting details of the Tudor palace of Whitehall, parts of which survived the fire of 1698, including the famous Holbein Gate built for Henry VIII, demolished in 1759.

The Banqueting House displays its original roof and stonework, as designed by Inigo Jones, before they were removed during the restoration of the building by John Soane between 1828-31. The former north annex, from which Charles I walked onto the scaffold to his execution in 1649 is clearly depicted, as is the still surviving weathervane.

This scene has been depicted many times: by Wenceslaus Hollar in an engraving of c1640, by the Swiss engraver John Maurer in 1741, and by the celebrated Italian painter of complex cityscapes, Antonio Joli, around the same date. The Joli view was much reproduced in later prints, but this original artwork is not a direct copy of any of these works: it seems most closely related to the Joli original, with alterations to the people and carriages depicted in the foreground, and was perhaps executed by someone in the circle of Joli himself, who worked in London between 1744 and 1748, employed as the scene painter and assistant manager at the King's Theatre, Haymarket.