Room 1 of 6
Churches & temples
Churches, basilicas, mosques, pagodas and temples, their portals, pulpits and tombs: San Marco in Venice, the Roman basilicas, the churches of Amsterdam, Ottoman madrasas and the temples of Java, Burma and Japan.
95 prints
1874 · 48 × 66 cm
1874 · 48 × 66 cm
1874 · 48 × 66 cm
1924 · 71 × 49 cm
1924 · 49 × 71 cm
1881 · 71 × 56.5 cm
1740 · 22 × 35.8 cm
1881 · 56.5 × 71 cm
1881 · 56.5 × 71 cm
Date not stated · 56.5 × 71 cm
Date not stated · 56.5 × 71 cm
Date not stated · 56.5 × 71 cm
1881 · 71 × 56.5 cm
Date not stated · 56.5 × 71 cm
1881 · 56.5 × 71 cm
Date not stated · 56.5 × 71 cm
1770 · 26 × 40.5 cm
Date not stated · 28 × 38.8 cm
1924 · 35.5 × 49 cm
1740 · 26.5 × 42 cm
1740 · 26.5 × 42 cm
1740 · 26.5 × 42 cm
1740 · 26.5 × 42 cm
Date not stated · 38.5 × 53.2 cm
1820 · 61.5 × 43.5 cm
1880 · 31 × 24.5 cm
1825 · 50 × 34 cm
1869 · 50 × 34.7 cm
1870 · 31 × 24.5 cm
1887 · 43.5 × 58 cm
1869 · 50 × 34.7 cm
1924 · 49 × 35.5 cm
1869 · 50 × 34.7 cm
1869 · 50 × 34.7 cm
1869 · 50 × 34.7 cm
1869 · 50 × 34.7 cm
1869 · 50 × 34.7 cm
1869 · 50 × 34.7 cm
1750 · 38 × 24.5 cm
1869 · 50 × 34.7 cm
1722 · 24.5 × 40 cm
Date not stated · 37 × 31 cm
1869 · 50 × 34.7 cm
1800 · 38 × 28 cm
1800 · 25 × 21 cm
1868 · 34.7 × 50 cm
Date not stated · 36.5 × 30.5 cm
1710 · 35 × 32 cm
About churches & temples
Churches and temples were the grandest buildings most engravers ever drew, and the prints in this room record them inside and out: facades and portals, naves seen from the west door, pulpits and altars, and the tombs set into their floors and walls.
The largest group is Ferdinand Ongania's survey of the Basilica of San Marco in Venice, published from 1881, whose plates of the portals and mosaics are among the finest architectural chromolithographs ever made. Beside it hang Goeree's interiors of the Amsterdam churches (1760s), Benoist's Roman basilicas (1869), the Ottoman madrasas and Iznik tomb panels of Bursa and Istanbul (1924), and the temples of Java, Burma, Siam and Japan from the travel books of the 1600s and 1700s.
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Questions about churches & temples
Which church prints are the most collected?
Large plates of famous buildings with fine detail and early colour: the San Marco portals of 1881, the Iznik panels from the tomb of Selim II, and early engravings of Asian temples from Nieuhof and Montanus.
Are the church interiors accurate?
Most were drawn on the spot for topographical books and are close records of the building as it stood, often before later restorations. Some, such as the 18th century views of Asian temples, were engraved in Europe from travellers' sketches.