The Upper Pool, from Cherry Garden Pier
- Catalogue number
-
SO 0004
- Artist
-
Edwin Edwards
- Printer
-
Elizabeth Ruth Escambe (Ruth Edwards)
- Date
-
1869
- Medium
-
Etching and drypoint
- Dimensions [to plate mark]
-
216 x 124 mm
Subject
The Upper Pool of the River Thames at low tide, seen from Cherry Gardens pier looking west towards the City and St Pauls Cathedral. Two steamships grounded in shallow water to the left of the plate, attended by a paddlewheel tug and a lighter on which three figures are shown in silhouette. Behind them and on the opposite bank the impression of a forest of masts and spars. Strong diagonal shadows across the hull of the central ship may suggest either a break in the gloomy atmosphere or moonlight.
Annotated on the reverse: 'Upper Pool, form Cherry Gardens Pier, 1869, Edwin Edwards
Printing
Printed by Ruth Edwards, c.1889. It appears that Ruth Edwards undertook the printing of the majority of her partner's work both during his lifetime and subsequently. In the late 1880s she prepared an unknown number of posthumous portfolios of Edwin Edwards early work, using plates that mostly dated from the 1860s. These impressions were printed on fine Japanese paper, laid paper or Chine Collé, and mounted singly on sheets of heavy off-white card measuring 456 x 367 mm.
History
Purchased at auction in a folio of seventeen etchings by Edwards, at Roseberys, London 17th June 2016. Conserved by Raymond McChrystal in 2024
