Watercolour, Kings Cross London, 1832, from 1852 the site of the terminus of the Great Northern Railway, by George Sidney Shepherd, British School, 1832

Watercolour on paper

Purchased, 1900

Until the early twentieth century the draughtsman and watercolour painter George Shepherd was thought to be the father of George Sidney Shepherd, whose monogram first appears in 1810. They are now understood to be the same person. Like his brother Thomas Hosmer Shepherd, the topographical draughtsman and drawing instructor, George Sidney showed signs of his talent early in his life. He was exhibiting topographical views at the Royal Academy by 1800. He was a talented draughtsman, able to express complicated perspectives and architectural details, making him an excellent urban topographer. These early works tend to be local views of the area surrounding City Road in rural Islington. By 1807 he had begun travelling outside London to Cambridge and Northampton to produce sketches for John Britton’s Architectural Antiquities of Great Britain. He also worked for Ackermann’s Repository of the Arts. In 1832 he began exhibiting at the Society of British Artists and in 1834 was a founder subscriber to the New Society of Painters in watercolours.

The painting is inscribed on the back ‘Kings Cross in 1832, the site of the present Great Northern Railway. Painted on the spot / May 16 1832’. This scene is located close to Islington, where Shepherd grew up. Painted on the spot, it offers a rare insight into this area prior to the construction of King’s Cross Station, which opened in 1852. Two kilns, in the centre of the composition loom over the figures in the foreground. These figures appear to be employed in digging up clay for making bricks to be fired in the kilns behind. Recently fired bricks can be seen stacked in the doorway of the wooden hut on the right. These would be used in the construction of new buildings in the capital, which was expanding at this date.

This subject, with its references to urban landscape and labour, seems to have been of particular interest to Shepherd. The artist’s observation of architectural detail combined with his mastery of perspective made him an excellent topographer of city views. In this view he uses aerial perspective to map out the distant roof tops of the city of London. In the foreground he meticulously observes the figures, tools that they are using and the make-shift wooden hut. By the 1830s Shepherd had changed from his early precise views to larger-scale painterly scenes such as this one. Here this style captures the feeling of industry with the two kilns standing against the distant towers belting forth smoke. A second watercolour of the same subject dating from the previous year is in the V&A collection (inventory number FA.600).

D.896-1900