Great Court, Somerset Place

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Government Art Collection

This aquatint print was plate XXXVIII of a series of 100 plates, titled ‘A Picturesque Tour through the Cities of London and Westminster’, published between 1792 and 1801. The volume is remarkable for all the plates being drawn, engraved and aquatinted by the same artist. Thomas Malton’s ‘Picturesque Tour’ was the first considerable collection of topographical and architectural drawings of London to be aquatinted and also the first British publication to assemble such a large number of aquatint prints.

The original watercolour for ‘Great Court, Somerset Place’ was exhibited at the Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1884, but its whereabouts is now unknown.

Thomas Malton junior was a teacher of perspective, draughtsman, etcher and aquatint engraver of views after his own designs and caricatures after Thomas Rowlandson. He was born in London, the son of the architectural draughtsman Thomas Malton senior and the brother of James Malton, who also became a well known draughtsman and aquatint engraver. Malton junior worked in Dublin for three years for the architect John Gandon and later studied at the Royal Academy Schools. He also worked as a scene painter, as well as running evening drawing classes, at which Turner took lessons in perspective. From 1796 until 1804 he lived in Long Acre, off St. Martin’s Lane. He is best known for his careful drawings of London buildings.

Places

England, London

Subjects

statue (as Subject), topography, townscape/cityscape, dog, man, 18th century costume, government building, courtyard

Materials & Techniques

aquatint, coloured aquatint

Artist

Thomas, jnr Malton (1748 - 1804)

Title

Great Court, Somerset Place

Date

5 November 1796

Medium

Coloured aquatint

Acquisition

Purchased from Vicars Bros., March 1957

GAC number

3751