Chapel in the Great Mosque, Cordova

Location

Country: Spain
City: Madrid
Place: British Embassy

David Roberts, son of a shoemaker from Stockbridge, Edinburgh, began his career at the age of ten as an apprentice to a house painter. On completing his apprenticeship he was employed on the decoration of Scone Palace in Perthshire. He later became a scene painter for James Bannister, who ran a circus in Edinburgh, and at the Theatre Royal, Edinburgh, before moving to London in 1822, where he turned to easel painting. Roberts exhibited at the British Institution, Society of British Artists and Royal Academy. He is best-known for topographical paintings and illustrations resulting from trips to Spain and the Middle East. He died aged 68 at his home in Fitzroy Street, near Tottenham Court Road, London, and is buried at Norwood Cemetery.
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

Spain

Subjects

topography, man, woman, clergyman, chapel, mosque, column, religious/ecclesiastical interior

Materials & Techniques

lithograph, colour lithograph

Artist

David Roberts (1796 - 1864)
Thomas Shotter Boys (1803 - 1874)

Title

Chapel in the Great Mosque, Cordova

Date

published 1837

Medium

Colour lithograph

Dimensions

height: 51.30 cm, width: 36.60 cm

Acquisition

Purchased from Baynton-Williams, February 1975

GAC number

11805