John Pine

The story of the Spanish Armada from the House of Lords tapestries.

• John Pine (English).
• London: John Pine, 1739.
• Printed from three plates.
• Unframed.

A pair of sea charts of the English Channel, printed in blue, within a decorative border printed from a third plate. The left plate shows the Spanish Armada of 1588 entering the Channel, blown by a delicately engraved wind head, watched by two putti and an allegorical figure of Britannia. The right plate shows the Armada in the famous crescent formation, with the English fleet behind them, pushing them up the Channel. In the center of the decorative border is a portrait of Elizabeth I.

This is a plate from "The Tapestry Hangings of the House of Lords," drawn by Hubert-François Gravelot, engraved and published by John Pine. It depicts one of ten tapestries commissioned from the Dutch marine painter Hendrik Cornelisz Vroom by Lord Howard of Effingham in 1591 to commemorate the defeat of the Armada. Unfortunately they were destroyed when the Houses of Parliament burned down in 1834, leaving Pine's book as the only record. It is lucky that Pine worried that "Time, or Accident, or moths may deface these valuable shadows."