Hyde Park Near Crosvenor Gate, plate sixteen from Original Views of London as It Is
Medium
Hand-colored lithograph on paper
Dimensions
24.3 × 47 cm (9 5/8 × 18 9/16 in.)
Classification
lithograph
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
131155
Art Historical Context
Thomas Shotter Boys created this hand-colored lithograph in 1842 as plate sixteen in his celebrated series *Original Views of London as It Is*. The image captures a serene stretch of Hyde Park near Grosvenor Gate, offering viewers a glimpse of early Victorian London’s most fashionable public space. At a time when the city was rapidly expanding, Boys chose to document its parks, streets, and architecture with remarkable fidelity, preserving a record of London just as the industrial age began to reshape daily life. The medium itself reflects the artistic innovations of the period. Lithography, ...
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...