Previously on loan to Tate Britain, London, circa 1996.
E. Einberg, Manners & Morals: Hogarth and British Painting 1700-1760, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1987, p.130.
Engraved
Engraved by H. Fletcher, published 1738
The following condition report is provided by Sarah Walden, who is an external specialist and not an employee of Sotheby's.
This painting has been lined and restored quite recently. There is a widely spaced old craquelure. An old many sided tear can be seen under ultra violet light in the lower middle right of the sky, with another shorter slanting tear at the upper middle and many little recent retouchings scattered mainly across the sky. Recent wear has been touched in for instance in chimneys and railings along the skyline, with strengthening of some darker parts. Older retouching can also be distinguished under ultra violet light in various places, but it seems possible that there was quite a wide reworking of the painting fairly early in its life.
The lower part of the painting and in particular the figures have been generally finely preserved, especially in the lighter detail and vivid Venetian brushwork.
This report was not done under laboratory conditions.
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The view depicted shows the old Stocks Market, on the site of modern day Mansion House and the Bank of England. Originally established for the sale of meat and fish during the reign of Edward I, prior to which a pair of stocks had stood on the site which gave the marketplace its name, by the early eighteenth century the market had mainly been given over to the sale of herbs. In the background can be seen the spire of St. Stephen’s Walbrook, whilst the centre foreground is dominated by the impressive marble equestrian statue which was originally intended as a monument to John Sobieski, the Polish king who saved Vienna from the Turks. The statue was altered soon after the Restoration by Jasper Latham, Sir Christopher Wren’s master mason, to depict Charles II trampling on the defeated Cromwell, and the Royal arms can be seen engraved in an escutcheon on the base. The market and the jumble of buildings surrounding it to the east of Poultry were cleared in 1738 to make way for the construction of Mansion House, designed by the architect George Dance. The market was moved to Farringdon Street, where it became known as Fleet Market, and the statue of Charles II, which had been donated to the parish of St. Stephen’s Walbrook by Sir Robert Viner, Lord Mayor of London, in 1672, was presented by the city to his descendant Robert Viner, and later removed to Newby Hall in Yorkshire. Below the mounted figure of the King the busy street life of London, with its coffee shops, food sellers, street hawkers and all the panoply of the city life is painted in minute and compelling detail. The figures give an idea of the whole spectrum of London society, from gentlemen of fashion and noblemen in their carriages, to the urban poor, domestic servants and street sellers, all depicted with a realism and characterisation that suggests Nickolls was inspired by the work of William Hogarth, with its complex interaction between high and low culture.
Stylistically the painting belongs to the tradition of English urban topography that had developed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries from Dutch painting, and it is an extremely fine, rare example of the sophistication of English view painting before the arrival of Canaletto in 1746. Despite the evident quality of his work little is known about Nickolls’s life or career. The present work forms one of a pair of views which are among the artist’s earliest known works. The other is a view of the Fountain in the Middle Temple (Middle Temple, London), which is signed by the artist and dated 1738, and both works were engraved and published that year. Despite their Dutch ancestry both paintings demonstrate a manner of figure painting that strongly recalls contemporary Venetian practice, and the artist’s precise detail, skilfully judged and never overstated, holds the viewer’s interest into the depth of the picture, revealing a wealth of interest. Scarcely half a dozen works are known by Nickolls, all of which are views of London. They include a View of Charing Cross and Northumberland House, signed and dated 1746 (National Westminster Bank, London), a pair of Views of the Rotunda at Ranelagh, signed and dated 1748 (formerly Melbury House, Dorset), and a View of St. James’s Park and the Mall (Royal Collection), which shows George II and Frederick, Prince of Wales walking in the park, with a view of Westminster Abbey in the distance. Reference to his involvement in a decorative design for ‘a beautiful landscape of ruins and running water’ at Vauxhall Gardens1, circa 1661, suggest that he may have been employed as a scenery painter, as were many artists of his generation, and it is almost certain that Nickolls contributed figures to the work of contemporary landscape artists, including George Lambert and Luke Sullivan. Another version of this picture, dated 1741, is in a private collection.
1. E. Einberg, op.cit., p. 130.
