Town Hall of Louvain (Leuven), Belgium, Steel Engraving after Allom, c. 1850

A steel engraving of the Town Hall of Leuven, lettered Louvain, after Thomas Allom, one of the great Gothic civic buildings of Europe.

The town hall rises at the center, its facade covered with niches, tracery and slender corner turrets. At right stands part of St. Peter's Church, and old gabled houses frame the square at left. In the foreground a horseman crosses the cobbles, a porter rolls a barrel, a dog runs, and townspeople gather in the market.

The plate is lettered "T. Allom" and "E. Radclyffe", with the title "Town Hall of Louvain, with part of the Cathedral", a French caption "Hotel de Ville Louvain, avec une partie de la Cathédrale", and the imprint "Peter Jackson, London and Paris". Allom's Belgian views were first issued by Fisher, Son and Co. and later reissued under the Peter Jackson imprint; this impression is dated circa 1850.

The Leuven town hall was built between 1448 and 1469 and is one of the finest works of Brabantine Gothic. The lettering calls St. Peter's a cathedral, as English captions often did.

A superb architectural subject for a study or library, it pairs well with the Brussels and Antwerp views in this group. The engraved image measures about 12.6 by 17.3 cm (height by width), and the margins around it carry all the original lettering, which is worth keeping visible in the mat.

This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed.