Thomas Shotter Boys, Original Views of London as It Is. London: T. Boys, 1842.
Drawn and lithographed by Boys, with text in English and French by Charles Ollier.
Boys, a celebrated watercolorist and lithographer, prepared these hand colored lithographs to look as much like original watercolor drawings as was possible with the printing technology available at the time. London as It Is, and his earlier Picturesque Views in Paris ...(1839), were extremely well regarded for both their artistry and the accuracy of their depictions. As a consequence, Boys' work was influential both artistically, by contributing to the acceptance of the commercial 'artist's print' in the art world, and historically, in documenting nineteenth-century city life in London, a facet of urban history for which few documentary sources survive. Boys's reputation for accuracy notwithstanding, he regularly inserted images of himself or references to his name within his topographic renderings [in the view shown here, note his initials on the foreground basket].
Gift: Susan Dwight Bliss.