Lot Essay
Westminster Abbey is shown across the Thames from Lambeth with the Tower of St. Margaret's Church on which flies the Royal Standard. In the centre Westminster Hall and the twin turrets of the House of Commons can be seen above the trees of the Cotton and Speaker's Gardens and beyond Westminster Bridge are the Banqueting House and the spire of St. Martin's in the Field.
In the foreground on the Thames is the Ironmongers' Barge engaged in a rehearsal for the Lord Mayor's procession to Westminster which took place annually in November. The newly elected Mayor headed a water-borne cavalcade to Westminster Hall where he was sworn in before the Barons of the Exchequer, his official vessel being preceeded by the Barge of the Company to which he belonged. As Martin Holmes, in his article 'London Scaffolding and a Brilliant Painting by Samuel Scott' (Connoiseur, June 1965, pp. 84-5), points out, the scene is identifiable as a rehearsal, which was neccessary in order to master turning across the current of the Thames and putting in at Parliament Stairs, by the absence of the banners and other signs of pageantry that accompanied the actual procession.
Two other versions of this composition are recorded, signed and dated 1746 and 1747, and are respectively in a private collection and the Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection (B1976.7.149), (Kingzett, p.59, A and B). A study for the bottom right hand corner of these two versions (24 x 29in.) is also in the Paul Mellon Collection (no. 982). While in the other two versions, the South Western tower of Westminster Abbey is anachronistically shown under construction and still encased in scaffolding, here Hawksmoor's design is shown complete as it was by 1748. Likewise the bridge is shown with its full compliment of parapets and turrets rather than unfinished, and only four rather than five arches are included, the fifth having been demolished and reconstructed shortly after its completion at the end of 1746. Although dated 1748 and topographically correct for that date, the introduction of the Ironmongers' Barge makes a date pre-1749 for the completion of the picture improbable since it was not until 1749 that Sir Samuel Pennant of the Ironmongers' Company was elected Mayor. Kingzett, op.cit., suggests the possibility that this picture, like a version of Scott's Arch of Westminster Bridge (Kingzett, p. 64, E), may have been acquired by the de Grey family from the collection of Sir Lawrence Dundas, who had purchased Moor Park together with some of its contents from Admiral Anson, one of Scott's most important patrons. Alternatively it may have come into the de Grey collection as a result of the marriage of Jemima, Marchioness de Grey, to Philip Yorke, later 2nd Earl of Hardwicke in 1740.
In the foreground on the Thames is the Ironmongers' Barge engaged in a rehearsal for the Lord Mayor's procession to Westminster which took place annually in November. The newly elected Mayor headed a water-borne cavalcade to Westminster Hall where he was sworn in before the Barons of the Exchequer, his official vessel being preceeded by the Barge of the Company to which he belonged. As Martin Holmes, in his article 'London Scaffolding and a Brilliant Painting by Samuel Scott' (Connoiseur, June 1965, pp. 84-5), points out, the scene is identifiable as a rehearsal, which was neccessary in order to master turning across the current of the Thames and putting in at Parliament Stairs, by the absence of the banners and other signs of pageantry that accompanied the actual procession.
Two other versions of this composition are recorded, signed and dated 1746 and 1747, and are respectively in a private collection and the Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection (B1976.7.149), (Kingzett, p.59, A and B). A study for the bottom right hand corner of these two versions (24 x 29in.) is also in the Paul Mellon Collection (no. 982). While in the other two versions, the South Western tower of Westminster Abbey is anachronistically shown under construction and still encased in scaffolding, here Hawksmoor's design is shown complete as it was by 1748. Likewise the bridge is shown with its full compliment of parapets and turrets rather than unfinished, and only four rather than five arches are included, the fifth having been demolished and reconstructed shortly after its completion at the end of 1746. Although dated 1748 and topographically correct for that date, the introduction of the Ironmongers' Barge makes a date pre-1749 for the completion of the picture improbable since it was not until 1749 that Sir Samuel Pennant of the Ironmongers' Company was elected Mayor. Kingzett, op.cit., suggests the possibility that this picture, like a version of Scott's Arch of Westminster Bridge (Kingzett, p. 64, E), may have been acquired by the de Grey family from the collection of Sir Lawrence Dundas, who had purchased Moor Park together with some of its contents from Admiral Anson, one of Scott's most important patrons. Alternatively it may have come into the de Grey collection as a result of the marriage of Jemima, Marchioness de Grey, to Philip Yorke, later 2nd Earl of Hardwicke in 1740.