Waterloo Bridge from the West with a Boat Race

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Government Art Collection

A line of small rowing dinghies stretches into the distance, each holding a lone occupant, competing in the boat race. Either side of the race other smaller boats are filled with onlookers and to the left the distinctive brown sail of a Thames barge can be seen. The river is spanned by the old Waterloo Bridge in the distance.

This plate is one of a series of twelve, all lithographed by William Parrott, after his own watercolour designs. The plates were published by Henry Brooks as ‘London from the Thames’ (1840), without any accompanying text.

The view includes the original Waterloo Bridge, designed by the Scottish civil engineer John Rennie (1761-) and built in 1817. The bridge was made of granite and had nine arches. It was painted by several artists, most notably Claude Monet and John Constable. In the 1920s it was replaced by London City Council with the present structure designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott.

Topographical painter, watercolourist and lithographer William Parrott was the son of a farmer from Aveley, in Essex. He was initially apprenticed to engraver John Pye but later virtually abandoned engraving in favour of watercolour painting. Parrott exhibited in London at the Royal Academy (1835-63) and also at the British Institution, Royal Society of British Artists and elsewhere. He lived briefly in Paris (1842-43) and then Rome (1844-45), and published a series of twelve lithographs titled ‘Paris et ses Environs’ (1843). In 1851 he made a tour of Germany and he also paid frequent visits to Brittany and Normandy. Parrott occasionally painted figure subjects, including a caricature of J. M. W. Turner (1840; Ruskin Museum, Oxford).

Places

England, River Thames, London, Waterloo Bridge, Lambeth: Lead Works Shot Tower, Somerset House

Subjects

rowing boat, boat racing, topography, townscape/cityscape, Victorian Genre, river, flag, bridge (urban), tower, oar

Materials & Techniques

lithograph, colour lithograph

Artist

William Parrott (1813 - 1869)

Title

Waterloo Bridge from the West with a Boat Race

Date

published 25 June 1841

Medium

Colour lithograph

Dimensions

height: 26.50 cm, width: 41.00 cm

Acquisition

Purchased from Parker Gallery, April 1964

GAC number

6398