The Tower and the Mint from Great Tower Hill

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Government Art Collection

This topographical print is part of a wider series that was originally published in 1842 as a large folio entitled 'Original Views of London, as it is'. This volume stands within the tradition of pictorial representations of London, but is marked out by its concerted effort to portray the incidental detail of life in the city, rather than merely depicting the architectural or topographical environment. 

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, Royal Mint (as Place Name), Tower of London, City of London

Subjects

wheelbarrow, carriage, cart, hoop-rolling, topography, townscape/cityscape, Victorian Genre, horse, hill, boy, man, woman, 19th century costume, lamp post, bollard, Royal Mint (as Subject), prison, tower

Materials & Techniques

lithograph, coloured lithograph

Artist

Thomas Shotter Boys (1803 - 1874)

Title

The Tower and the Mint from Great Tower Hill

Date

1842

Medium

Coloured lithograph

Acquisition

Purchased from Frank T Sabin, October 1957

GAC number

3921