Johannes Kip, the Gloucestershire Engravings, edited by Anthea Jones

Three hundred years ago, in 1721, the ‘Dutch engraver’ Johannes Kip died suddenly after more than thirty years spent in England as a renowned printmaker. Gloucestershire owes him a special commemoration in 2021 as the draughtsman and also engraver of more than 60 prints, executed between 1707 and 1710, of the houses, gardens and landscape settings of gentry houses and mansions. The short commentary which accompanies a large-sized reproduction of each print in this book has pointers to the details and to the history of the house and the family. There are examples of old and relatively new houses, large houses and relatively modest ones, elaborate gardens and extensive estates, splendid views reaching to the shipping on the rivers bounding the county on the west, or more limited ones of local hills. Two engravings of Gloucester are presented first (one of the cathedral was published before Atkyns’ book in 1712), and then the sequence of parishes starts with Wick Court, appropriately the least altered of all the houses portrayed.

March 2021, 174pp, colour illustrated large format hardback, £25.00, ISBN 978-1-906978-99-0; also available in paperback, August 2021, £16.95, ISBN 978-1-914407-17-8. Published in association with Gloucestershire Gardens and Landscape Trust