View from the Artist
August 4 2011
Picture: Yale Center for British Art
I was impressed to get the correct answer yesterday within a few hours of posting the clue. Most of you had the right idea.
One reader asked:
Bruges, Belgium?
Nope. Another:
It should be in London somewhere?
Good. Another:
Is it Westminster, with Westminster Hall and the Henry VII Chapel of Westminster Abbey in view?
Yes! But the first correct answer (from Malta no less) also gave chapter and verse:
In response to your latest article ‘View from the Artist’, the location where the artist painted was known as the Westminster Stairs.
The artist who executed the painting is Claude de Jongh. I have yet to see the panel in the flesh, but I know it from a 1956 article by John Hayes (Burlington). The painting is signed and dated, 1637. At the time of the article’s publication, Hayes also mentions that the work was in the collection of Harald Peake, in London. Today the painting can be found at the Yale Centre for British Art, New Haven.
