Anton van den Wyngaerde Anton van den Wyngaerde ( Spanish : Antonio de las Viñas ) ( 1525 - 1571 ) was a prolific Flemish topographical artist who made panoramic sketches and paintings of towns in the southern Netherlands , northern France , England , Italy and Spain . He is best known for many panoramas of cities in Spain that he drew while employed by Philip II of Spain . His work was dispersed into different collections after his death and neglected . Its historical and artistic value has only recently been rediscovered . Life . Van den Wyngaerde was probably born around 1525 in Antwerp . His father may also have been an artist , since an " Anton van den Wyngaerde " was registered in 1510 in the painter ' s guild of Antwerp . His first known work was a topographical view of Dordrecht from around 1544 . Trained in the Antwerp school , his views were made by artistic observations from nature . From his body of work , he is known to have traveled to Italy , where he drew views of Rome , and to England . A large view of London in fourteen sheets is dated to 1544 . Between 1552 and 1553 van den Wyngaerde created views of Rome , Genoa , Naples and Ancona . Four of van den Wyngaerde ' s panoramas of Rome were discovered in the Sutherland Collection in the Bodleian Library of Oxford . They appear to be copies , and may have been done by apprentices rather than by the artist himself . The original of one of them was found later , in four separate leaves , more clearly and carefully drawn . They must have been executed no later than September 1557 since one of them shows the Pons Aemilius still complete . That bridge was ruined by a flood of the Tiber on 18 / 27 September 1557 , and was not repaired in stone until 1575 . Van den Wyngaerde entered the service of Philip II of Spain , and during the 1557 Spanish campaign in northern France he documented the sieges of Saint Quentin and Ham . He also drew views of Sluis , Dunkirk , Mechelen and Bruges . A view of Brussels is dated 1558 . Between 1558 and 1559 he visited England , perhaps more than once , where he made views of places that Philip II had visited in 1555 when he had traveled to England to marry Mary Tudor , including Dover , London and the palaces of Greenwich , Hampton Court , Oatlands and Richmond . The original of the Panorama of London is in the Sutherland Collection in the Ashmolean Museum , Oxford , and measures 10 feet by 17 inches , in seven sheets . Around 1561 or 1562 Anton van den Wyngaerde went to Spain where Philip II commissioned him to document all the main towns , and also to decorate the royal palaces with pictures of the Netherlands , Spain and Italy . He decorated the walls of the El Pardo palace with several city views , and he painted scenery for theater productions at the royal court . Van den Wyngaerde made at least sixty - two views of cities and towns , including Barcelona , Valencia , Zaragoza , Granada , Córdoba , Seville , Toledo , Burgos and Madrid . Van den Wyngaerde ' s picture of Cadiz before it was sacked by the English in 1596 is the only reliable view from that time . He drew the first picture of Gibraltar . His main task was to make paintings of the many cities in Philip ' s kingdom on the walls of the Royal Palace of Madrid . These were lost in a fire of 1727 that destroyed the palace , but many of the drawings survived . Van de Wyngaerde once said , " among all the joys that the delightful and ingenious art of painting has to offer , there is not one that I hold in higher esteem than the representation of cities . " His last dated work was a panorama of Çamora from 1570 . In 1571 he died in Madrid . He received little recognition during or after his life until his work was rediscovered in the late 1800s . Work . As a servant of the king , van de Wyngaerde ' s drawings presented the Spanish cities in their best possible light , but he succeeded in giving a vivid depiction of town life in his day . He showed the general prosperity of the Spanish cities of his day , which were growing fast , although they were all still walled cities in the Medieval tradition , dominated by churches and palaces . The drawings show the cities as they were during the golden age of Philip II with what appears to be photographic accuracy . However , there is no trace in his pictures of the squalor of street life that prevailed in all cities of that time . Van den Wyngaerde ' s city views , often from imaginary viewpoints , were made without falling back on surveys or plans but depended on the artist ' s visual memory and imagination . His line drawings would be enhanced with watercolors in green , blue , red and brown to add detail and realism . He would add pictures of the surrounding countryside with figures of people to give a sense of scale , The sense of realism was illusory , as close examination shows problems of scale and selective representation of features of interest . In a 1563 " View of Valencia " , the city seems to be viewed from the north , but the cathedral is depicted as it appears from the west , which shows off the building to better advantage . The streets are made wider and straighter as though the city had been formally planned , the squares are made larger and some of the towers are moved to different positions . Despite the appearance of detail and realism , the picture gives an idealized sense of the city ' s appearance rather than an accurate representation . Van den Wyngaerde ' s work was always artistic rather than scientific . References . Notes Citations Sources Further reading