Lot 5: Henry Danckerts (c.1625-c.1680)

View of St. James's Palace and the gardens, from the south-west with figures promenading oil on canvas 221/2 x 41 in. (57.2 x 104 cm.) NOTES This view of St. James's Palace is taken from the south-west, showing the garden side overlooking St. James's Park, a viewpoint later adopted and drawn by Leonard Knyff, whose work was engraved by Kip and others. King Henry VIII, who enjoyed hunting in the land stretching from St. James's Park to Marylebone and Hampstead, built a manor house on the site of a medieval leper hospital. During the reign of King Charles II, the palace was extensively redecorated and refurnished and it became the prinicpal residence of the Duke of York and his court. After the 1698 fire which destroyed Whitehall Palace, St. James's Palace became the main royal residence and Queen Anne brought in Christopher Wren to design a suite of state apartments. The building visible through the trees on the right is the Banqueting House, the only completed part of Inigo Jones's and John Webb's plans for the huge palace that King James I intended to build at Whitehall. The Banqueting House, one of the most sophisticated of Jones's classical buildings, opened with a performance of Ben Jonson's 'Masque of Anglers'. King Charles I commissioned Rubens to paint the ceiling which celebrated the attributes of wise kingship. On 30 January 1649, King Charles I walked for the last time across the Banqueting House, and through a window to the scaffold where he was beheaded. King Charles II celebrated his Restoration to the throne at the Banqeting House in 1660. The fire of 1698 marked the end of the ceremonial significance of the Banqueting House and Wren converted it into the Chapel Royal. Danckerts was born in the Hague. Following a visit to Italy, he came to England in 1658 where he became a leading painter of topographical views. It is known that King Charles II commissioned the artist to 'paint all the sea-ports in England and Wales; as also the Royal Palaces; which he performed admirably well'. We are grateful to Valerie Cummings for dating the costumes to about 1677-78, a year or so before Henry Danckerts left England to return to Holland at the time of the Popish plot.