The West India Docks in the Isle of Dogs, Antique London Engraving, 1804

About this sheet

This antique London engraving, lettered "The West India Docks in the Isle of Dogs, with Greenwich Hospital in the Foreground", shows the new West India Docks on the Isle of Dogs seen across the river with the ranges of Greenwich Hospital in the foreground, a long panorama of masts and warehouse roofs; a second line of lettering records that the view was drawn in the camera obscura of the Royal Observatory. It is an original copper plate from the 1804 quarto Modern London, and the sheet carries its own engraved title beneath the image together with the credit recording that it was drawn by Edward Pugh and engraved by Reeve.

The plate was issued in Modern London; being the History and Present State of the British Metropolis, printed for Richard Phillips of 71 Saint Paul's Church Yard and published in 1804. Phillips was one of the most energetic London publishers of the period, and the book set out to describe the capital as it actually was in the first years of the nineteenth century rather than as antiquarian tradition remembered it. The topographical plates were drawn by Edward Pugh, a Welsh painter and miniaturist working in London, and engraved on copper by a group of accomplished specialists including James Fittler, Samuel Rawle, Isaac Taylor and John Pass, each of whom signed his own plate.

What gives these plates their value now is the date. They record London in the year of the invasion scare, before gas lighting, before the Regent Street improvements and before the fire of 1834 took the old Palace of Westminster, and several of them are among the last views taken of interiors that no longer exist. The engraving is fine and even, printed with good contrast on heavy laid paper, and a single sheet frames handsomely on its own. A group of them makes an unusually coherent wall for anyone with a connection to the city.

Complete sheet with clean, straight edges. Light, uneven toning, slightly darker towards the edges. Scattered light foxing and one larger brown spot in the margin.

This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed. Any framed or interior images are shown for presentation and inspiration only, unless the listing explicitly states that the item is sold framed.