Anon. From the Bridge over the Serpentine, Looking to Kensington Palace, London

An original late 19th-century watercolour painting – From the Bridge over the Serpentine, Looking to Kensington Palace, London.

This beautiful watercolour—relatively large in scale—shows a view looking west from the bridge over the Serpentine lake in Hyde Park, with Kensington Palace in the distance.

The tranquil view captures the abundance of green in the heart of London; the unhurried scene populated only by small sail- and rowboats on the recreational lake.

This is not Dickens's grimy London but rather the city filtered through the gaze of a Romantic 19th-century artist—shimmering under soft pink-tinted evening skies.

This painting is one of a pair that we have for sale. The other view is painted from the India Office in Westminster. The artist is anonymous but was evidently someone with access to the India Office building, which at that time was not open to the public. As a government office tasked with overseeing the administration of crown rule in India, it employed Secretaries of State for India, members of the Council of India, and a wider administrative team.

One of a pair of London views that we have for sale (see KD-799).