Van den Wyngaerde was born probably around 1525 in
Antwerp. His father may also have been an artist, as an "Anton van den Wyngaerde" was registered in 1510 in the painters’ guild. , , looking north.
Southwark Cathedral is in the left foreground Van den Wyngaerde's first known work, from around 1544, was a topographical view of
Dordrecht. As he was trained in the
Antwerp school, he created his views using observations from nature. A large view of
London in 14 sheets is dated to 1544, including a plan of
Whitehall Palace, which he redrew for
Henry VIII of England. , London in 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 University. They appear to be copies, and may have been done by apprentices rather than by the artist himself. One original by van den Wyngaerde was found later, in four separate leaves, more clearly and carefully drawn. They must have been executed no later than September 1557, as one of them shows the
Pons Aemilius still complete, while it was damaged 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. , 1562|thumb|left Between 1558 and 1559 he visited England, perhaps more than once, and made views of places that Philip II had visited in 1555 when he had travelled thence to wed
Mary I of England. These views included
Dover and London, as well as the palaces of
Greenwich,
Hampton Court,
Oatlands, and
Richmond. The original of the Panorama of London is in that part of 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 travelled 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 theatre 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
Cádiz before it was sacked by the English in 1596 is the only reliable view from that time. He drew the first known detailed 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 his preparatory 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
Zamora in Spain from 1570. He died in Madrid in 1571. He received little recognition during or after his life, and his work was rediscovered only in the late 1800s. == Work ==