Pocket Panorama of the Interior of Westminster Abbey, beautifully coloured, London, Thomas McLean & Co, ca.1830

Accordion-style paper peepshow of the view up the nave of Westminster Abbey.

5 cut-out panels and a removable back-slide. 1 peep-hole. Hand-coloured aquatint. In a slipcase. Expands to approximately 64 cm.

Slipcase: the title, price and imprint of the publisher enclosed in a floral border.

Front-face: a Gothic squint. The peep-hole consists of a large arch.

Panel 1-5: men and women standing the nave of Westminster Abbey.

Back panel: the West Door with the West Window. The monument to William Pitt the Younger above the door, the monument to Rear Admiral Thomas Hardy to the left of it, and the monument to John Conduit to the right.

Removable slide: the Nicholas Hawksmoor choir screen. Against the wall of the screen is the monument to Sir Isaac Newton on the left, and the monument to Lord Stanhope on the right. The organ case and the stained glass window.

Removing the slide would transform the peep from a view of the nave looking east into a view of the nave looking west.

Accepted under the Cultural Gifts Scheme by HM Government from the collections of Jacqueline and Jonathan Gestetner and allocated to the Victoria and Albert Museum, 2016.

Part of the Jacqueline and Jonathan Gestetner Collection, collected over 30 years and given to the V&A Museum through the government's Cultural Gift Scheme, 2016.

Rather than being an accurate description of the product, the title pocket panorama appears to be a tactic of the publisher to associate this paper peepshow with another type of popular entertainment.

The removable slide of this paper peepshow depicts the choir screen that can no longer be seen today. It was designed in austere Gothic style in 1728 by Nicholas Hawksmoor, whose greatest contribution to Westminster Abbey, the upper sections of the west towers, still stand today.
In 1834, the choir screen was refashioned by Edward Blore in 1834. The re-modelling of the screen also impacted the two monuments to Sir Isaac Newton and Lord Stanhope, which originally stood out against the flat front of the screen. They had to be enclosed within the decorative arch we see today when Blore refashioned of the screen.

Gestetner 221