This watercolour depicts the Crystal Palace, a huge pre-fabricated building, designed by Joseph Paxton (1803-1865) for the Great Exhibition held in Hyde Park in 1851. A revolutionary construction of cast iron and glass, it measured 563 meters long by 138 meters wide, and was visited by six million people. The Great Exhibition was a celebration of industrial technology and design. The first in a series of World's fair exhibitions which continues to the present day, the V&A was founded with its profits. At its close the building was dismantled and re-erected in South London, where it was lost to fire in 1936.

Edmund Walker (active from 1836, died 1872) specialized in architectural views. This watercolour belonged to the civil engineer Sir Charles Fox (1810-74). His firm Fox Henderson & Co. assisted in the development of the design, provided calculations and working drawings, manufactured components and erected the structure. Paxton's design was only accepted on 15th July 1850, and its successful completion in time for its opening on the 1st May 1851 was due in large measure to Fox's skill and willingness to take risks. Dated 1850, this watercolour is an 'artist's impression' of a building at best unfinished, or possibly not even begun.