William Logsdail - The Courtyard of the Plantin-Moretus House, Antwerp

Price Realized £12,500

signed 'W. Logsdail 1880-2' (lower right)
oil on canvas
45½ x 37½ in. (114.2 x 95.2 cm.)

London, Royal Academy, 1882, no. 1528.

In 1880 and 1881, William Logsdail submitted five views of Antwerp to the Royal Academy. The present picture would not appear to be amongst those exhibited, although it does depict a significant Antwerp landmark, the Plantin-Moretus House, site of the city's most significant printing business. Established in 1550 by Jan Plantin, the typographer's greatest work was the Biblia Regia and Biblia Polyglotta, published in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Syriac and Chaldaic, with appendices, and bound in eight folios. It has been described as the greatest work ever to have been produced in the Netherlands by one printer. After its publication Plantin was appointed arch-typographer to Philip II of Spain. On his death the business passed to his second daughter and her husband, Jan Moretus. Plantin's grandson Balthasar Moretus I, substantially remodelled the premises between 1620 and 1640 and gave the inner courtyard the facade, embellished with busts of his family, depicted here.