Object types
drawing (scope note | all objects)
Materials
paper (all objects)
Techniques
drawn (scope note | all objects)
Production person
Drawn by Thomas Malton (biographical details | all objects)
Date
1726-1801
Schools /Styles
British (all objects)
Description
Church of St Lawrence Jewry, King Street, Cheapside; the Guildhall at r, figures seated on an ornate seat at left, carriages in the street, and figures carrying baskets
Watercolour, with pen and grey ink
Dimensions
Height: 328 millimetres
Width: 478 millimetres
Curator's comments
Stainton 1985
The son of a minor artist who wrote a work on perspective, Thomas Malton followed his father's speciality of architectural subjects, especially the streets, squares and important buildings of London. His views derive from the type established by Canaletto in .the 1740s, and are similarly based on long receding perspective lines often with a building in shadow cut off at one side in order to lead the eye into the composition. In this drawing, the sunlit Guildhall on the far side indicates, as it were, the way out.
Between 1792 and 1801 Malton published a series of one hundred aquatints based on his drawings, 'A Picturesque Tour through the Cities of London and Westminster'. Here he is exploiting a phrase popularised by the Rev. William Gilpin, although as used by Malton it means no more than 'illustrated'. These aquatints form the fullest record of the appearance of London at that period. This watercolour, dated 1783, shows Wren's church of St Lawrence Jewry with the old Guildhall on the right. In the aquatint, published in 1798, Malton followed it closely. He brought the dress of the figures up to date and altered the background on the right in order to take into account the new facade of the Guildhall added by George Dance in 1789-90.
Malton also painted scenery for Covent Garden, and in 1789 opened an evening drawing school, where one of his pupils was the youthful Turner whose architectural subjects of the 1790s reflect his influence particularly in their low, often oblique, viewpoint.
Associated places
Topographic representation of London (scope note | all objects)
Acquisition date
1880
Acquisition name
Purchased from John Gregory Crace (biographical details | all objects)
Previous owner/ex-collection Thomas Malton (Studio sale, Christie's 5 .v.1804/15, 3 guineas to Graves) (biographical details | all objects)
Previous owner/ex-collection Frederick Crace (biographical details | all objects)
Exhibition History
1977 Oct-Nov, Louisville, Speed Mus, British watercolours no.32
1985, BM, British Landscape Watercolours, no.50
1991 Jan-Mar, Cleveland MA, Ohio, BM English Watercolours, no. 25
1991 Mar-June, N Carolina MA, BM English Watercolours, no. 25
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