Lot 229: ANOTHER PROPERTY GEORGE MARSHALL D.1732 PERSPECTIVE VIEW OF THE INSIDE OF ST STEPHENS CHURCH IN

ANOTHER PROPERTY GEORGE MARSHALL D.1732 PERSPECTIVE VIEW OF THE INSIDE OF ST STEPHENS CHURCH IN WALBROOK, LONDON

signed l.r.: George Marshall Delin^t and inscribed l.l.: S^t Christopher Wren Arch^t,, further inscribed l.c.: Perspective View of the inside of St Stephens Church in Walbrook London and inscribed on an original label attached to the backboard: Saint Stephens Church, Walbrook/Amongst the numerous churches with which the metropolis/is studded, Saint Stephen's, Walbrook, is, perhaps one of the most/beautiful, - indeed it is more celebrated on the continent, than/the Cathedral of St Pauls, or Westminster Abbey.- Although there/was a church in this Parish so early as the year 1135, yet the/sight on which the present elegant edifice is erected was not thus/occupied until the year 1429. The first stone of the new church/was laid in 1672 and in 1679 it was completed. The interior/of this church is allowed to be the most beautiful and matchless/architecture. Externally it displays no architectural attractions: but the interior is calculated to gratify every lover of the/art. The walls enclose an area of eighty two feet from east/to west, by fifty nine feet from north to south. The roof is/supported and the area divided by sixteen Corinthian columns, eighty of which sustain an hemispherical cupola, adorned with/acaissons and having a lantern light in the centre.

watercolour over pencil heightened with touches of bodycolour, with original wash-line border

ENGRAVED:
by the artist

CATALOGUE NOTE

This view of St Stephen's Church, Walbrook, dates from the later part of George Marshall's career and before his death in 1732. The church was originally founded on the west bank of the Walbrook sometime before 1096. Richard Chicheley, a former Lord Mayor, gave funding for the church to be rebuilt on the east bank of the river in 1429-39. It was, however, rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren in 1672-9 after it burnt down in the Great Fire and it is Wren's church which is depicted so finely in the present watercolour.

The figure standing in the foreground of the present work, leaning on a cane and gazing directly at the viewer is a posthumous portrait of Sir Christopher Wren after Sir Godfrey Kneller's oil, now in the National Portrait Gallery. Another group of figures, including a lady dressed in her finery and a servant boy, stand to the right of the composition with their backs to the viewer and looking towards the great dome of the church (see fig.2). Marshall's drawing of the church was later engraved and copies of the print are now at the Guildhall Library. They depict a reverse image of this scene with the figure of Wren replaced by another and the gentleman on the right absent (see fig.3).

Like St Paul's Cathedral, St Stephen's combined a cross-in-square plan with a large centralised dome. Sixteen Corinthian columns supported the roof and the church was topped with an impressive spire. After St Stephen's was completed it quickly became widely celebrated. Lord Burlington, John Wesley and Canova, the Italian sculptor, all held it in the highest regard and, in 1734, The Critical Review of Publick Buildings in London claimed that it was 'famous all over Europe and justly reputed the masterpiece of the celebrated Sir Christopher Wren. Perhaps Italy itself can produce no modern buildings that can vie with this in taste or proportion.'

The church was badly bombed during the Second World War although the seventeenth century fittings, the font, pulpit, sounding board, reredos and communion rails all survived. After restoration at a cost of over a million pounds the church was reopened in 1987.

Little is known of the artist George Marshall except that he worked in York and Scotland in the early eighteenth century and became a pupil of Godfrey Kneller and John Scougal. He painted portraits and still-lives and was a prominent figure in artistic circles in Scotland. At the beginning of the eighteenth century he went to Rome where he worked for a while before returning home.

52.5 by 40 cm., 20 3/4 by 15 3/4 in.