View of Westminster Bridge including Westminster Hall and the Abbey

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Government Art Collection

There had been proposals to construct a bridge across the River at Westminster as far back as the Restoration, but it was not until 1738 that engineer Charles Labelye (1705-1781) was appointed to bring the project to fruition. Westminster Bridge was opened in 1750. After London Bridge, it was only the second masonry structure to cross the Thames. In 1802, while standing on this version of the bridge, known now as Old Westminster Bridge, Wordsworth was inspired to write his sonnet ‘Earth has not anything to show more fair…’. The present cast-iron bridge was constructed just over a century after Old Westminster Bridge, between 1854 and 1862.

Joseph Farington was born in Leigh, Lancashire, son of the vicar of Leigh and rector of Warrington. He was educated in Manchester and studied under Richard Wilson in London from 1763. He entered the Royal Academy Schools in 1769 and became an Academician in 1785. His strength was in pen, ink and wash drawings of topographical views. He made extensive sketching tours of the UK and settled in the North Country from 1776. Works made there led to the publication ‘Views of the Lakes of Cumberland and Westmorland’ (1785). In 1780 he suffered a breakdown after his wife died. In the next year he moved to London. He died on a visit to his brother in Lancashire, when he fell down steps at Didsbury Church. His personal diaries were published in 1934.
Joseph Constantine Stadler was a prolific German émigré engraver of images after his contemporaries. His engravings are wide-ranging in subject matter and include landscapes, seascapes and portraits, as well as military, sporting and decorative subjects. Stadler was employed by the leading print publisher of the time, John Boydell (1720-1804). On 23 March 1799 Stadler married Ann Elizabeth Sandman at St Anne’s Church, Soho, in London. He was living in Knightsbridge when he died at the age of 73.

Places

England, River Thames, London, Westminster Hall, Westminster Bridge, Westminster Abbey, Westminster

Subjects

rowing boat, topography, townscape/cityscape, river bank, river, bridge (urban), government building, house, abbey, church, hall, sailboat

Materials & Techniques

aquatint, coloured aquatint

Artist

Joseph Farington (1747 - 1821)
Joseph Constantine Stadler (1755 - 1828)

Title

View of Westminster Bridge including Westminster Hall and the Abbey

Date

1 October 1790

Medium

Coloured aquatint

Dimensions

height: 43.00 cm, width: 64.00 cm

Acquisition

Purchased from Vicars Bros., March 1957

GAC number

3762