The Hall at the Royal Academy, Somerset House, 1 May 1810

Attributed to George Shepherd (ca. 1765 - - after 1831)

RA Collection: Art

This print shows a view of the Hall of the Royal Academy at Somerset House, now the entrance hall of the Courtauld Gallery. In the foreground on the left is a cast of the Apollo Belvedere next to a sculpture of a head. A student sits by a window, drawing either a cast of the Farnese Hercules or the Furietti Centaurs flanking it (which are still in place, on loan to the Courtauld).

This plate, along with 74 others from Ackermann's Repository of Arts magazine, was subsequently re-issued in J.B. Papworth's Select Views of London, 1816. Although J.F.C. Phillips attributes 'no fewer than 35' of these London views to either Thomas Hosmer Shepherd or his father George, he only identifies one of these by name ('A North View of the India House, Leadenhall Street'). On the evidence of extant signed drawings Bernard Adams identifies Shepherd as the source artist for another six of the prints, although not this one.

Further Reading



Bernard Adams, London illustrated 1604-1851: a survey and index of topographical books and their plates (London: Library Association, 1983)

J.F.C. Phillips, Shepherd's London (London: Cassell, 1976), pp.9-10, 103-104