Lot 49: Jan Griffier Jun. (fl.1738-1773)

View of Greenwich from One Tree Hill with horsemen in the foreground
signed 'Jan Griffier' (lower centre)
oil on canvas
31 x 40 3/4 in. (78.8 x 103.5 cm.)

Alexander, 18th Lord Saltoun, Cairnbulg Castle, Aberdeenshire; Christie's, London, 13 October, 1950, lot 27 (as 'P. Tillemans').

The old Royal Observatory, situated on One Tree Hill, was built for John Flamsteed, the first Astronomer Royal, by Christopher Wren in 1675-76. The 'one tree' on the hill was to be destroyed in a storm in 1848. To the right of the Royal Observatory are the houses of Crooms Hill, an ancient road dating back to the 12th Century. In the foreground to the right can be seen Greenwich Hospital. In 1694 Queen Mary had decided that the buildings begun by King Charles II should be completed to provide a Royal Naval Hospital for disabled seamen. The rest of the building was designed by Sir Christopher Wren, Nicholas Hawksmoor and Sir John Vanbrugh. In the far distance is the city of London, dominated by the spires of post-fire churches.

Jan Griffier Junior was primarily a topographical and landscape painter. His work has in the past been confused with Robert Griffier (1688-c.1750), also a topographical artist, who was likely to have been his father, and was in turn the son of Jan Griffier Senior (1645-1718), who originated from Amsterdam, but came to work in London soon after 1666. The family of artists made London their home, establishing a reputation as specialists in views of the city. Such views had become increasingly popular following the arrival of Canaletto in London in 1746. Griffier Junior was also a noted copyist of Claude. As Colonel H.M. Grant has observed, 'This youngest Griffier was by far the ablest of the three of that name. Indeed, he should stand high amongst the ornamental romanticists of the early eighteenth century' (Grant, Old English Landscape Painters, Leigh-on-Sea, 1957, p.65).

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