A View of the Chinese Pavillions and Boxes in Vaux Hall Gardens. Les Pavillions et les Loges Chinese dans Les Jardins de Vaux Hall
Engraving
1751 (printed)
1751 (printed)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
Vauxhall Gardens, or the New Spring Garden at Vauxhall as it was originally known, opened soon after the Restoration in 1661. Open from May until late August, it soon became a pleasant excursion by river for Londoners from Temple, Westminster or Whitehall Stairs where barges waited to ferry patrons to Vauxhall Stairs, including Samuel Pepys who made his first visit on 29 May 1662. By 1728, when the Spring Garden appears to have fallen into some disrepute, Jonathan Tyers obtained a thirty year lease of the land, and by subsequent purchases in 1752 and 1758 became the owner of the estate. He made substantial improvements and opened his first Vauxhall Gardens on 7 June 1732 with a grand 'Ridotto al Fresco' costing a guinea for admission. By the start of the 1748 season, emulating the recently opened Ranelagh Gardens, Tyers added a Rotunda, to act as an assembly room and concert hall in bad weather, and by about 1750 it became possible to reach the Gardens by coach. In the winter or 1750-1751 Tyers refurbished serveral buildings including The Temple of Comus, built in 1748-49, which became known as the Chinese Pavilions.
The Chinese Pavilions, depicted in this print, added more Gothic decoration to the formerly quite simple classical colonnade of supper boxes formed by Ionic columns supporting straight entablature, topped with urn finials. The Gothic reworking of the architecture was achieved with elaborately pierced medieval-inspired stonework additions to the openings of all the supper boxes and the central Temple, which appears to have housed a Chinese-style statue and fresco on the wall behind.
The Chinese Pavilions, depicted in this print, added more Gothic decoration to the formerly quite simple classical colonnade of supper boxes formed by Ionic columns supporting straight entablature, topped with urn finials. The Gothic reworking of the architecture was achieved with elaborately pierced medieval-inspired stonework additions to the openings of all the supper boxes and the central Temple, which appears to have housed a Chinese-style statue and fresco on the wall behind.
Object details
| Categories | |
| Object type | |
| Title | A View of the Chinese Pavillions and Boxes in Vaux Hall Gardens. Les Pavillions et les Loges Chinese dans Les Jardins de Vaux Hall (assigned by artist) |
| Materials and techniques | Printed paper |
| Brief description | Hand-coloured engraving of The Chinese Pavillions and Boxes in Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, engraved by Thomas Bowles (1712-1753) after Samuel Wale (1721-1786). Printed for Robert Wilkinson and Carington Bowles (1724-1793), ca.1751 |
| Physical description | Hand-coloured engraving printed on paper showing fashionably dressed patrons of Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens in 1751 walking and talking on the lawn in front of the curved facade of the Chinese Pavillions and their supper boxes. Diners are seated in the supper boxes, and a waiter is seen entering from the left carrying a plate and a flask of wine, approaching a couple of ladies with a young girl. A man and woman stroll together in the centre foreground, while others walk and talk, including two men and a woman, far right. |
| Dimensions |
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| Marks and inscriptions | |
| Credit line | Acquired with the support of the Friends of the V&A |
| Object history | Late in 1751 two series of prints of Vauxhall Gardens appeared: one after Canaletto published by Robert Sayer, the other after Samuel Wale published by John Bowles. According to John Lockman's A Sketch of Spring Gardens, 1752, the north-west part of Vauxhall Gardens had in the previous season consisted of 'downs ... covered with shrubs'. By the 1751/52 season the new supper boxes and pavilions shown here had been built. They appear in both the Canaletto and Wale series, but with much variation in detail suggesting that at least one version was based on drawings made when construction was not yet complete. See S. O'Connell London 1753 (BM, 2003), pp. 237-40, for further discussion. |
| Production | The Bowles family (fl. ca.1714-1832) were publishers and map sellers active in London from ca.1714 to ca.1832. The firm, under Thomas Bowles (fl.1714-1763), John Bowles (1701-1779), Carington Bowles (1724-1793), and as Bowles and Carver (fl.1794-1832), produced a massive corpus of work that included numerous atlases, pocket maps, and wall maps. The Bowles publishing tradition was kept alive over four generations starting with Thomas Bowles, a print engraver in the late 17th century. The first maps issued by the firm were produced by his son, Thomas Bowles the second, who based in self in St. Paul's Churchyard, London. Thomas's brother, John Bowles (called Old John Bowles or Black Horse Bowles by those who knew his shop), was also an active publisher and was established at no. 13 Cornhill. It is said that he was one of the first publishers of William Hogarth's works. It was here that John's son, Carington Bowles, was introduced to the trade. Carington took over the Cornhill bookshop and eventually merged it with his uncles shop in St. Paul's Churchyard. On Carrington's death in 1793, the business was passed to his son Henry Carington Bowles, who partnered with Samuel Carver, renaming the firm, Bowles and Carver. |
| Association | |
| Summary | Vauxhall Gardens, or the New Spring Garden at Vauxhall as it was originally known, opened soon after the Restoration in 1661. Open from May until late August, it soon became a pleasant excursion by river for Londoners from Temple, Westminster or Whitehall Stairs where barges waited to ferry patrons to Vauxhall Stairs, including Samuel Pepys who made his first visit on 29 May 1662. By 1728, when the Spring Garden appears to have fallen into some disrepute, Jonathan Tyers obtained a thirty year lease of the land, and by subsequent purchases in 1752 and 1758 became the owner of the estate. He made substantial improvements and opened his first Vauxhall Gardens on 7 June 1732 with a grand 'Ridotto al Fresco' costing a guinea for admission. By the start of the 1748 season, emulating the recently opened Ranelagh Gardens, Tyers added a Rotunda, to act as an assembly room and concert hall in bad weather, and by about 1750 it became possible to reach the Gardens by coach. In the winter or 1750-1751 Tyers refurbished serveral buildings including The Temple of Comus, built in 1748-49, which became known as the Chinese Pavilions. The Chinese Pavilions, depicted in this print, added more Gothic decoration to the formerly quite simple classical colonnade of supper boxes formed by Ionic columns supporting straight entablature, topped with urn finials. The Gothic reworking of the architecture was achieved with elaborately pierced medieval-inspired stonework additions to the openings of all the supper boxes and the central Temple, which appears to have housed a Chinese-style statue and fresco on the wall behind. |
| Bibliographic reference | |
| Other number | |
| Collection | |
| Accession number | S.1678-2014 |
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| Record created | September 30, 2014 |
| Record URL |
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