Chairs to Mend, Soho Square, Cries of London, 1804

An original antique hand colored copper engraving of a London street seller, lettered "CHAIRS TO MEND." below the image and "Soho Square" in script above it. A woman in a straw bonnet, red kerchief and purple skirt holds a baby in her arms and carries a tall bundle of rushes over her shoulder for reseating chairs. She stands beside a dark painted pillar with partial advertising lettering, beneath a hanging sign in the form of a bunch of grapes, with the trees of the square behind.

The location "Soho Square" is engraved in script at the top of the plate and the cry "CHAIRS TO MEND." in open capitals at the bottom. Below the border, the lower left corner carries the artist credit "Craig del" (meaning Craig drew it), and the center carries the imprint "Published Augst. 25 1804 by Richard Phillips 71 St. Pauls Church Yard", dated August 25, 1804. No engraver is named. Soho Square was laid out in the late seventeenth century, with a railed garden at its center.

Modern London; Being the History and Present State of the British Metropolis was published in London in 1804, printed for Richard Phillips of No. 71, St. Paul's Church-Yard, by C. Mercier and Co., and "illustrated with numerous copper plates." Alongside its views of public buildings it carried a series of plates of the street traders of London, each showing a seller with his or her wares against a recognizable London setting, named in script above the image, with the trader's cry engraved below. William Marshall Craig, credited on the plate as the draftsman, was a London painter in watercolors and miniatures and a drawing master. His designs for the series record the dress, tools and goods of the people who sold in the streets of Georgian London, and they remain a valuable document of everyday life in the city at the beginning of the nineteenth century.

Framed with a wide mat, it would sit well in a kitchen, hallway or study, or in a group with other London street cries.

This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed.