Fish Market, Antwerp
Medium
color lithograph on wove paper
Dimensions
image: 27.1 x 17 cm (10 11/16 x 6 11/16 in.) sheet: 35.5 x 53.9 cm (14 x 21 1/4 in.)
Classification
Department
CG-E
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Ruth Cole Kainen
Accession Number
2005.145.7.a
Art Historical Context
Thomas Shotter Boys’s *Fish Market, Antwerp* captures the lively atmosphere of one of Europe’s busiest ports in 1839. A skilled British draftsman and early master of color lithography, Boys traveled widely on the Continent, recording picturesque urban scenes with a keen eye for architectural detail and everyday activity. The print shows vendors and townspeople gathered around stalls brimming with fresh catch, the Gothic spire of Antwerp Cathedral rising in the background. Color lithography was still a relatively new medium at the time, allowing artists to reproduce subtle washes and tints tha...
About the Artist
Thomas Shotter Boys · 1803–1874
Thomas Shotter Boys was born on 2 January 1803 in Pentonville, London, and received his first professional training as an apprentice to the engraver George Cooke. When his apprenticeship concluded he crossed the Channel to Paris, a move that would transform his artistic direction entirely. There he encountered Richard Parkes Bonington, the brilliant English watercolourist whose fresh, luminous ren...