The Embankment with Old Scotland Yard and the Clock Tower of the Palace of Westminster Beyond

(click image to enlarge)

The Embankment with Old Scotland Yard and the Clock Tower of the Palace of Westminster Beyond

Herbert Menzies Marshall (1841-1913)

Price

SOLD

Signed

Signed and dated 1894

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

30 x 45 ½ inches

Provenance

Presented to Matthew Murray Esq JP by the North East Coast Shiprepairers' Association in grateful recognition of his valuable services as Treasurer, October 1914, then by descent

Exhibited

'Chris Beetles Summer Show', 2020, No 81

Living close to the Palace of Westminster, at 1 Victoria Mansions, Victoria Street, for about a decade of the late nineteenth century, Herbert Menzies Marshall produced many iconic images of the building and its surroundings, of which the present oil on canvas is particularly outstanding.

This work is probably based on the drawing, The Embankment, Westminster (which illustrated Marshall’s article, ‘London as a Sketching Ground’ in The Studio in 1894), and the watercolour, On the Embankment (once in the stock of Chris Beetles Gallery). All three show the Embankment on a winter afternoon, and specifically during one of the severe winters of the early 1890s, at the end of what has become known as the ‘Little Ice Age’. However, the oil omits the hansom cabs and affluent pedestrians included in the studies in order to convey a beautifully spare, and even melancholic atmosphere, in which there is a palpable chill in the air and a sparkle of reflected light in the snowmelt of the cart tracks. The result is a fascinatingly complex image which represents the centre of Imperial government at the highpoint of its history but also at the quietest time of the year.

The work’s symbolic weight adds interest to its provenance. In October 1914, Matthew Murray (1857-1920) received the painting from the North East Coast Shiprepairers’ Association ‘in grateful recognition for his valuable services as Treasurer’. Born in Wallsend, on Tyneside, Murray spent most of his career as Secretary of the Wallsend Slipway and Engineering Company, a highly successful company of marine engineers and ship repairers, which, among other undertakings, provided parts to the Royal Navy for its warships. An important figure in the local community, he was active as a mason and served as Mayor of Wallsend (1905-7) and a Justice of the Peace. In 1919, he was presented with the Freedom of the Borough of Wallsend.