George Sidney Shepherd 1784-1862

Royal Academy, 1830, no.534 as `Old Covent Garden Market, as it appeared on the morning previous to Christmas day, 1828'

Huon Mallalieu, The Dictionary of British Watercolour Artists up to 1920, vol.II, 2002, ill. p.169

The present watercolour shows the market at Covent Garden looking west towards the church of St. Paul's before the rebuilding of the central area of the piazza in 1830. The main layout of Covent Garden dates from Inigo Jones's designs for the 4th Duke of Bedford dating from the 1630s which became the first public square in the country. To the west of the square is the Tuscan portico of St. Paul's Church with raised `portico' houses on the north and east sides and Bedford House on the south side.

The fruit and vegetable market started in the centre of the square in the mid seventeenth century and by the 1760s it had taken over most of the area. By the end of the century it had become `the greatest market in England for herbs, fruit and flowers' but by the 1820s complaints about the noise and congestion led to Act of Parliament being passed in 1828 giving the Earl of Bedford the power to demolish the existing buildings and erect a purpose-built market. This was designed by Charles Fowler and completed in 1830 and is the present building on the site. It continued as the principal fruit and vegetable market in the country until it moved to Nine Elms in 1973.

George Sidney Shepherd is one of the most important chroniclers of London life in the first half of the nineteenth century. Various other members of his family also drew, the best known being Thomas Hosmer Shepherd, who also specialised in London views. In the present watercolour, Shepherd depicts the houses in the centre of Covent Garden before they were demolished for Fowler's new market which was completed in 1830, the year in which this watercolour was exhibited at the Royal Academy