Old St Paul’s envisaged

The other day in their 100 Years ago column The Times printed an illustrated article from 1925 about the famous fourteenth century graffito of Old St Paul’s in London which can still be seen at Ashwell church in Hertfordshire.

The article can be seen at Old St Paul’s captured in graffiti

Old St Paul’s has intrigued or fascinated me since I was a small boy learning from books about English cathedrals. The link to the article about the Ashwell carving led me to look in my files and I saw that I have several about London’s lost cathedral that might be of interest to readers.

The excellent series of videos from The Antiquary very recently had two about the cathedral which can be seen at LONDON'S LOST CATHEDRAL - OLD ST PAUL'S and at WAS OLD ST PAUL'S CATHEDRAL SEMI-DETACHED?

I also came across one from the Society of Antiguaries about the well known 1616 painting showing a sermon being delivered at Paul‘s Cross in the presence of King James I and his Queen. The full account of this triptych was new to me and a useful addition to my knowledge of both the image and the early Stuart renovation of the cathedral. The video can be viewed at Unlocking Our Collections: Old St Paul's

A while ago I had copied another account of the cathedral from another good website, History Calling, and which can be seen at REDISCOVERING OLD ST PAUL’S CATHEDRAL.

Finally from a US website there is an impressive set of images and discussions about the cathedral with AI reconstructions of it in its last century as the setting for Anglican worship in the age of Shakespeare and the King James Bible alongside the Book of Common Prayer. It can be viewed at Virtual St. Paul's Cathedral Website

To these images I would add two more, both of which show the spire and were created by artists who saw it, or at least saw contemporary images of it. Anthony Wyngarde’s drawing of London from the south in 1543 gives additional detail about the tower and spire of the cathedral with the pinnacles and battlements of the tower which were removed after the 1561 fire. It anticipates Hollar’s engraving of a century later after the burning of the spire.

More surprisingly the distinctive tower and spire of the cathedral are clearly shown in the composite idealised city in the background to Jan van Eyck’s Virgin and Child with St Barbara and St Elizabeth. This was painted in 1441-44 for Jan Vos, the Prior of the Bruges Charterhouse. The painting is now in the Frick Collection in New York.