Strawberrys Scarlet Strawberrys

Plate 9 from the first and most famous series of ‚’London Cries’ produced by Colnaghi & Co after the works by Francis Wheatley, exhibited by him at the Royal Academy between 1792 and 1794 and published by them from 1795; this plate in June of that year.

All respectfully record the working Londoners who would make their living on the streets, calling their ‚’cries’ as they went, from sale to sale; job to job. This plate showing a vendor of strawberries in Covent Garden, the market granted permission by King Charles II in 1670, retaining its role there as London’s main produce market until the move to Nine Elms in 1974.

Fourteen works were exhibited over the period and to great acclaim, such that Colnaghi quickly agreed to publish the group as a suite, dropping one from the eventual set, which were sold individually or in a portfolio collection of thirteen.

The prints were stipple engraved by some of the best and most highly regarded engravers of the Georgian period; Giovanni Vendramini, Thomas Gaugain and Luigi Schiavonetti; this particular example being published under Schiavonetti’s direction, engraved by Vendramini.

It is interesting to note that complete collections of the “Cries” remained immensely popular, and by 1910 they were fetching more at auction than James Audubon’s folio “Birds of America”.

Within a replica of a Georgian period print frame.

o.s:15 in x 18.75 in