Wenceslaus Hollar, draughtsman and etcher, was born in Prague; the son of an official. It is thought he had no formal training. He left Prague at 20 and resided in Stuttgart (1627-29), Strasbourg (1629-30), Frankfurt-am-Main (1631) and Cologne (1632-38), where Abraham Hogenberg published his portraits and views of Prague and the Dutch coast. Thomas Howard, Second Earl of Arundel, met Hollar in Cologne and returned to London with him in 1636. He produced prints of works in the Earl’s collection and married a servant to the Earl’s wife. He moved to Antwerp in 1644, returning in 1651/52. In 1669 he was the official artist on an embassy to Tangier with Lord Henry Howard, which resulted in two series of etchings. He died in Westminster aged 70.
