The West India Docks and Greenwich Hospital, London, 1804

This is an original antique copper engraving, uncolored, lettered "The West India Docks in the Isle of Dogs. with Greenwich Hospital in the foreground." The view looks down from high ground across the domed buildings of Greenwich Hospital to the Thames, where full-rigged ships and smaller craft lie on the river. Beyond the water the long, low ranges of the new dock warehouses stretch across the Isle of Dogs under a broad sky of banked clouds. Trees and a garden terrace fill the lower part of the image, with a carriage passing in front of the nearest building.

The title is engraved in script below the image, with a second line reading "Drawn in the Camera Obscura of the Royal Observatory." At lower left is the artist's credit "Pugh delin." and at lower right the engraver's credit "Reeve sculp." Above the image runs the imprint "Published Augt 11-1804. by Richard Phillips. No 71. St Pauls Church Yard."

The plate comes from Modern London; Being the History and Present State of the British Metropolis, printed for Richard Phillips, No. 71, St. Paul's Church-Yard, by C. Mercier and Co., Northumberland-court, Strand, in 1804, and "illustrated with numerous copper plates." Many of its topographical views were drawn by Edward Pugh, a Welsh painter working in London, and engraved on copper by several London engravers, each of whom signed his own plate. The West India Docks opened in 1802, so this view records them when they were barely two years old, seen from the Royal Observatory in Greenwich Park.

The wide river panorama reads well at a distance and suits a study or hallway.

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