Nonclutz in Engellandt. [Nonsuch Palace] by Daniel Meisner



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Title Nonclutz in Engellandt. [Nonsuch Palace]
Artist Daniel Meisner
Medium Copper engraving
Date c.1638
SizeImage 67 x 141 mm, Plate 95 x 147 mm, Sheet 134 x 174 mm
NotesFrom Daniel Meisner's Sciographia Cosmica published by Paulus Furst (1638-78).

Inscription above image reads: Fulmen Ex Pelvi [Lightning from the basin]. Inscribed beneath image with verses in Latin and German.

Nonsuch Palace was a Tudor royal palace, built by Henry VIII in Surrey, England. It stood from 1538 to 1682–3. The palace is perhaps the grandest of Henry VIII's building projects. It was built on the site of Cuddington, near Ewell, the church and village having been destroyed and compensation paid to create a suitable site. Work started on 22 April 1538, six months after the birth of Henry's son, later Edward VI. Within two months the name 'Nonsuch' appears in the building accounts, so called because it was claimed there was no such palace elsewhere equal to its magnificence. The palace was designed to be a celebration of the power and the grandeur of the Tudor dynasty, built to rival Francis I's Château de Chambord. Unlike most of Henry's palaces, Nonsuch was not an adaptation of an old building. The palace cost at least £24,000 (the equivalent of approximately £104 million today) because of its rich ornamentation, and is considered a key work in the introduction of elements of Renaissance design to England. In 1670 Charles II gave the palace to his mistress, Barbara, Countess of Castlemaine. In around 1682 she had it pulled down, and sold off the building materials to pay gambling debts. Some elements were incorporated into other buildings; the wood panelling can still be seen today in the Great Hall at Loseley Park.

Meisner's emblem book, containing over 800 pictorial-poetic compositions, was enormously popular throughout Europe in the 17th century. The plan views were based on the work of De Bry, Braun & Hogenberg, Merian and others with the addition of emblematic figures or scenes in the foreground, juxtaposed with moralising and edifying verses beneath the image and a Latin motto at top. It was originally issued with 52 plates as the Thesaurus philo-politicus in 1623-24. After Meisner's death in 1625, Eberhard Kieser, with assistance from Johann L. Gottfried, completed the work and published it until 1631. The plates then appeared in the eight parts of Sciographia Cosmica published by Paulus Furst between 1638-78. The plates for these editions were renumbered alpha-numerically in the upper right corners - A-H (identifying the 8 parts) and 1-100 (plate number). They were finally issued in 1700 and 1704 in Rudolf J. Helmer's Politica-politica.
Price£225

[28862] Prints : British Topography : Surrey

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