William Lionel Wyllie, R.A.

Malcolm Henderson Gallery, London, where purchased in 1973 by the present owner

London, Royal Academy, 1924, no.333

Pall Mall Pictures, 1924, illustrated p.43;
M.A.Wyllie, We Were One - A Biography of W.L. Wyllie, 1935, p.293 (where the two versions are confused)

The canvas is lined. Appears to be some slight discolouration in the sky, otherwise the work appears in good overall condition. Under ultraviolet light there appear to be areas of retouching across the sky and in the river. Small touches of retouching above right side of Greenwich and in the tower lower left corner. Held in a gilt composite frame with canvas inset.
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The Flowing River Winds Past Palace, Park, and the Homes of Toiling Millions was based upon a number of watercolour sketches, some of which were probably made in January 1924 when Wyllie was staying at the Ship Hotel in Greenwich (examples in the collection of the National Maritime Museum, London). Wyllie presented another, slightly smaller version of this painting to Greenwich Town Hall, entitled A View from Greenwich (now in the collection of Greenwich Heritage Centre). Both paintings relate closely to a contemporary etching entitled The Thames from Greenwich Park, Looking North-West. It was the present version that was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1924.

The view is looking west to the city of London, with St Paul’s Cathedral and Tower Bridge clearly visible on the horizon. The high aerial vantage is from slightly east of the Royal Observatory, which occupies the lower left corner. Beyond the observatory are the spires of St Mary’s and St Alfege (on the left, demolished in 1936). On the right of the painting a sailing ship is being towed upstream by a tug towards Wren’s magnificent Royal Naval College and past the dockyards of the Isle of Dogs, before the Thames snakes around to Deptford Reach. Much of the centre of the composition is taken up by the college, the former Dreadnought Hospital to its west on Romney Road and to the east the Royal Hospital School College (now the National Maritime Museum). Queen’s House is at the centre with the drill ship 'Fame' on the parade ground to the north. On the riverfront to the west of the college’s twin domes can be seen the lawns of Pepys Walk, beyond which is the bulk of the riverside Ship Hotel (no longer extant) beside the cupola of the Greenwich Foot Tunnel built in 1902 – its northern counterpart can be seen amongst the heavy industry of the dockyards and factories. Wyllie has painted a city of modernity and of history, pulsating with human activity, architectural magnificence and industrial clamour. He was born in London and loved the city, painting its river and port for a career of over sixty years from around 1870 until well into the 1920s. The present picture was exhibited in the same year as another glorious view The Towers, Spires and Bridges of our City depicting the area around the Tower of London and St Pauls.