VIEWS OF LONDON AND WESTMINSTER. COLLECTED AND EXHIBITED BY JOHN GREGORY CRACE, ESQ.
- Entrance to Blackwall Docks, 1801.[31]
- Perry's Dock, Blackwall, 1801.
- View of the Reservoir in the Green Park, looking south (towards Westminster), 1810.
Original drawing of Brooks's Subscription Room, in the possession of
HENRY BANDERET, ESQ. BROOKS'S CLUB.
ORIGINAL DRAWINGS BY THOMAS ROWLANDSON IN POSSESSION OF W. R. BAKER, J.P., ESQ., OF BAYFORDBURY PARK, HERTFORD.
At Bayfordbury Park—where, it will be remembered, the celebrated collection of the Kit Cat Club, a national gallery of portraits, by Sir Godfrey Kneller, of the most interesting character, has its home—the choice examples of Rowlandson's skill appear to have been secured by the family at one time, and that at what may be considered the artist's best period—a little before the production of Vauxhall Gardens, and the series contributed to the exhibitions of the Royal Academy.
- The Bath Coffee House. A highly amusing interior, representing the various fashionable characters to be met with on the Great Bath and Bristol Road a century back.
- Rustic Scene. Carters' horses watering.
- Scene outside a Lodge in a London Park, crowded with animated groups of folks of bon ton, as they might be seen disporting themselves in the fashionable resorts, where the 'best company' of the day was to be encountered in 1785.
- The Waggoner's Halt.
- Sailors Soliciting Charity. A party of Rodney's 'old salts,' disabled, and reduced to appeal to charity; a model of a ship-of-war is dragged about on wheels to attract the attention and sympathies of the passers-by.
- French Barracks, 1786. A highly finished example of one of Rowlandson's most famous subjects (exhibited at the Royal Academy, 1787). It probably preceded the exhibited drawing, since it is executed on a somewhat reduced scale to that of the engraving. A full description of this admirable design is given under the list of subjects belonging to 1791 (Aug. 12).
- Death and the Apothecary. This subject is drawn in Rowlandson's most careful method. In the writer's opinion it is one of the earliest examples of the artist's finished works which have come under his attention, and is probably of the same date as the School of Eloquence, mentioned under 1780, which, as he has noted, has suffered at the hands of the anonymous etcher. Death, as a grim skeleton, is intruding into the apartment of an invalid by the window; the patient has armed himself with a gruelspoon to ward off this sudden attack from the unassailable foe, while a corpulent apothecary, standing in ambush behind his client, has snatched up a gigantic syringe, which he is pointing, by way of a great gun, at the bony framework of the ghastly actor who has dropped in to complete the quack's handiwork and snatch away a profitable customer. The whole of the background is worked out like a fine etching, in a fainter line than the figures, much in the style which distinguishes the etchings of Mortimer.
- Hertford Market Place (market day). This view of the old county town of Hertford is one of the finest and most interesting of those drawings which Rowlandson has left of the quaint towns of his day. It is altogether of an important character, being nearly 30 inches in length. It represents the Town Hall, the market-place, and certain picturesque ancient houses, faced with carved scroll-work, which front the corner hard by. The traveller will find these buildings exactly as Rowlandson viewed them a century ago; and, on a market-day, he will see the dealers' stalls, the country people busying themselves about their purchases, and the gentry passing or riding by, called to the town on local affairs, in some respects the same as a century ago. This scene, animated in itself as it is presented in our day, falls very far short of the prospect the artist has preserved, for the antique costumes have disappeared; and, comfortable as may be those of the generation who occupy themselves on the spot, the attractions found in the caricaturist's picture are looked for in vain; for the light flowing robes, the hats and feathers which aided the winning graces of the fair, the nodding plumes, and the scarlet and gold of the military bucks, the rustling silk cassocks, shovel-hats, and full-bottom wigs of the Church dignitaries, and all such characteristic accessories of the scene, no longer display themselves to assist the observer's sense of the picturesque.