St. Paul’s

Location

Country: Holy See
City: Vatican City
Place: British Embassy

In this lithograph of St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Cathedral is viewed from Ludgate Hill. The street is shown filled with shoppers and tradespeople. The original watercolour for this print, also dating from 1852, is held in the collection of the Museum of London. 

In 1668 Christopher Wren (1632-1723) was invited to submit proposals for a new St Paul’s to replace the mediaeval cathedral destroyed by the Great Fire of London. A total of 226 drawings from Wren’s office have survived showing every stage of the design and construction of the cathedral, one of London’s most iconic buildings. The plans underwent constant revisions (e.g. First Model, the Greek Cross, the Great Model, the Warrant), before the Final Design was realised 40 years later. This view of the cathedral allows us to experience the complexity of Wren’s vision: a two storey ornate façade with a portico flanked by two towers on the west running along a longitudinal plan with a central space surmounted by a vast, richly modelled dome inspired Michelangelo’s St Peter’s in Rome. The building displays an air of classical serenity absorbed into the vibrant rhythm and grandeur of a Baroque scheme. Edmund Walker’s carefully observed rear view of the church allows us to analyse in detail the elegant solution which Wren and his collaborator, architect and polymath Robert Hooke offered to St Paul’s cupola. 

Edmund Walker began as a miniature painter on ivory, abandoning the practice as photography grew in popularity. He then turned to architectural draughtsmanship, making sketches of country seats and selling them to the owners. His views of the Thames Embankment (completed 1870) were exhibited at the Royal Academy, as were many of his architectural drawings. Sometime before 1851 he began working for the publishers Day & Son. He made watercolour views and lithographs of the interiors of the Great Exhibition and lithographed William Simpson’s sketches of the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny for the firm. He reportedly ‘never fully recovered’ from the effect of the failing fortunes of Day & Son, late in his career. Walker died in 1882, aged 68.

Places

England, London, Ludgate Hill, St. Paul's Cathedral, City of London

Subjects

cart, handcart, barrel, topography, Victorian Genre, horse, boy, man, woman, girl, crowd, street, bollard, pavement, house, church, cathedral, dome, portico, window, chimney

Materials & Techniques

lithograph, colour lithograph

Artist

Edmund Walker (1813/14 - 1882)

Title

St. Paul’s

Date

published 1 May 1852

Medium

Colour lithograph

Acquisition

Purchased from Vicars Bros, July 1955

GAC number

3279