Johannes "Jan" Kip (1652/53 in
Amsterdam
Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...
– 1722 in
Westminster
Westminster is the main settlement of the City of Westminster in Central London, Central London, England. It extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street and has many famous landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, Buckingham Palace, ...
) was a Dutch draftsman,
engraver and print dealer. Together with
Leonard Knyff, he made a speciality of engraved views of
English country house
image:Blenheim - Blenheim Palace - 20210417125239.jpg, 300px, Blenheim Palace - Oxfordshire
An English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a Townhou ...
s.
Life
Kip was a pupil of Bastiaen Stopendaal (1636–1707), from 1668 to 1670, before setting up on his own; his earliest dated engravings are from 1672. In April 1680, at the age of 27, he married Elisabeth Breda in Amsterdam. After producing works for the court of
William of Orange in
Amsterdam
Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...
, Kip followed William and Mary to London and settled in
St. John Street in
Farringdon, where he conducted a thriving printselling business. He also worked for various London publishers producing engravings after such artists as
Francis Barlow (c. 1626–1704) and
Caius Gabriel Cibber (1630–1700), largely for book illustrations. He made several engraved plates for
Awnsham & John Churchill's ''A Collection of Voyages & Travels'' (first published 1704). He signed the African scenes in volume V of the 1732 edition as "J. Kip".
His most important works were the large fold-out folio illustrations for ''
Britannia Illustrata'', 1708; for the 65 folio plates he engraved for the antiquary Sir
Robert Atkyns, ''The Ancient and Present State of Glostershire,'' 1712 (1st edition); and for ''Le Nouveau Théâtre de la Grande Bretagne ou description exacte des palais de la Reine, et des Maisons les plus considerables des des Seigneurs & des Gentilshommes de la Grande Bretagne,'' 1715, an extended reprint in collaboration with other artists.
Partnership with Leonard Knyff
The linked careers of Jan Kip and
Leonard Knyff made a specialty of engraved views of
English country house
image:Blenheim - Blenheim Palace - 20210417125239.jpg, 300px, Blenheim Palace - Oxfordshire
An English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a Townhou ...
s, represented in detail from the bird's-eye view, a pictorial convention for
topography
Topography is the study of the forms and features of land surfaces. The topography of an area may refer to the landforms and features themselves, or a description or depiction in maps.
Topography is a field of geoscience and planetary sci ...
. Their major work was ''Britannia Illustrata: Or Views of Several of the Queens Palaces, as Also of the Principal seats of the Nobility and Gentry of Great Britain, Curiously Engraven on 80 Copper Plates,'' London (1707, published in the winter of 1708–9). The volume is among the most important English topographical publications of the 18th century.
Architecture
Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and construction, constructi ...
is rendered with care, and the settings of
parterre
A ''parterre'' is a part of a formal garden constructed on a level substrate, consisting of symmetrical patterns, made up by plant beds, plats, low hedges or coloured gravels, which are separated and connected by paths. Typically it was the ...
s and radiating
avenues driven through woods or planted across fields, garden paths, gates and toolsheds are illustrated in detail. The images are staffed with figures and horses, coaches pulling into forecourts, water-craft on rivers, in line with the traditions of the
Low Countries
The Low Countries (; ), historically also known as the Netherlands (), is a coastal lowland region in Northwestern Europe forming the lower Drainage basin, basin of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta and consisting today of the three modern "Bene ...
. Some of the plates are in the
Siennese "map perspective".
References
Further reading
*Kip, Johannes et al.
The history of nature, in two parts' (1720).
External links
("Heatons of Tisbury)
(The Philadelphia Print Shop Ltd.)
* (The Red House Collection)
(ArtCyclopedia)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kip, Jan
1650s births
1722 deaths
Emigrants from the Dutch Republic
Immigrants to England
Dutch draughtsmen
Artists from Amsterdam
Dutch printmakers
17th-century Dutch cartographers
17th-century Dutch artists
Dutch emigrants to England