Westminster Abbey, Hospital, Etc

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber), 10 Alfred Place

This view shows the north façade of Westminster Abbey and, at the left of the composition, the old Westminster Hospital. In the background, St Margaret’s Church Westminster can be seen. In the centre of the scene, two Westminster scholars in black robes walk between the abbey and the hospital.

This work was published in 1842 as part of a volume titled 'Original Views of London as it is'. The original volume included only monochrome prints, however a small number of hand-coloured sets were also published.

Thomas Shotter Boys was born in Pentonville, North London. He was apprenticed to engraver George Cook, before moving to Paris during the 1820s. There he met Richard Parkes Bonington, with whom he worked. He returned to England in 1837 and initially engraved the designs of other artists and contributed to publications. In 1839, Boys produced his own publication, ‘Picturesque Architecture in Paris, Ghent and Antwerp’, the first English book with lithographic plates entirely in colour. He was elected a member of the New Water Colour Society in 1841 and in the following year published ‘Original Views of London As It Is’. Boys spent the last 20 years of his life teaching drawing and working as a lithographer. He died aged 71 in St John's Wood.

Places

England, London, Westminster

Subjects

carriage, horseback, cart, topography, townscape/cityscape, Victorian Genre, horse, lamp post, government building, hospital, abbey, church, church windows

Materials & Techniques

lithograph, coloured lithograph

Artist

Thomas Shotter Boys (1803 - 1874)

Title

Westminster Abbey, Hospital, Etc

Date

1842

Medium

Coloured lithograph

Acquisition

Purchased from Frank T Sabin, April 1956

GAC number

3512