(Recto) View of the Crystal Palace as built in Hyde Park for the Great Exhibtion, July 1851; (Verso) landscape, ship and tree studies

No. 8 of 36 (PAI0849 - PAI0884).

Mends perhaps drew this view across the Serpentine to Joseph Paxton's Crystal Palace just before his ship, the 'Trafalgar' sailed for the Mediterranean in July 1851. While it is not exceptional, and probably rather underpopulated, his drawing catches the liquid reflections off the water and the way this pioneering prefabricated glass building, of enormous scale, fitted into the Park.

(Verso) A page of pencil studies, some overlapping. They comprise two landscapes, each with a distant mountain prospect and a tree in the right foreground, one including (in the middle ground) a church with a spire and the other a house: two bow-view hull studies (but with masts indicated) of naval ships at anchor, one a three-decker and the other a two-decker, probably drawn off Sheerness; and two studies of upright but drooping tree branches, one over a fainter plant drawing.

Object Details

ID: PAI0856
Type: Drawing
Display location: Not on display
Creator: Mends, George Pechell; Mends, George Pechell
Places: Hyde Park
Date made: Jul 1851
Credit: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London
Measurements: Sheet: 255 x 372 mm
Parts: Captain Captain George Pechell Mends' 'Trafalgar' sketchbook: (inside front cover) 'Hints on Drawing' with a small watercolour landscape sketch (Sketchbook)
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