The Bank Looking Towards the Mansion House

Location

Country: Chile
City: Santiago
Place: British Embassy

This view shows the south front of the Bank of England, seen from the corner of Bartholomew Lane, looking west. Part of the Mansion House can be seen on the left and the spire of the church of St Antholin (demolished in 1874) on Budge Row (which no longer exists) is just to the right of Mansion House. In the right foreground the Bank beadle (whose job it is to usher and keep order) gives directions to a couple who are dressed as though from the countryside. To the left of the composition, builders are at work.

This lithograph was published in 1842 as an illustration to the volume 'Original Views of London As It Is'. The publication included only monochrome prints. However, a small number of hand-coloured sets were also issued.

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, City of London

Subjects

wheelbarrow, shovel/spade, builder, topography, townscape/cityscape, Victorian Genre, stone/rock, man, 19th century costume, bucket, railing, lamp post, pavement, house

Materials & Techniques

lithograph, coloured lithograph

Artist

Thomas Shotter Boys (1803 - 1874)

Title

The Bank Looking Towards the Mansion House

Date

1842

Medium

Coloured lithograph

Acquisition

Purchased from Holleyman and Treacher, January 1959

GAC number

4840