WD1341

The old East India House, Leadenhall Street, London. c.1711.

Elevational drawing with perspective in depth.

Inscribed on front in ink, most probably by Vertue: ‘The Front of India House, Leadenhall Street.’

Pen-and-ink and wash; 17.75 by 12.25 ins.

Presented by Sir William Foster, c.1920.

Note: The drawing shows the original home of the East India Company. It was formerly the house of Sir William Craven and was leased to him by Robert Lee and Anne, his wife, for twenty-one years by an agreement dated 22 May 1607, to which was added a schedule of the fittings (see P.E. Jones, 'East India House', ‘Notes and Queries,’ 25 March 1944, vol.186, no.6, 153, and lease and schedule, Corporation of London Records Office, no.131.1, now in Guildhall Library MSS.). The schedule is mostly concerned with the interior of the house, but mentions 'An fine paire of Gates with a Portcullis of wood' followed by a description of 'The Yard next Leadenhall Street'. The house was later leased by William, then Lord Craven and the owner, to the East India Company, 11 March 1661, and it was later purchased by the Company in 1710. The property was rebuilt by Theodore Jacobson in 1726, and again, from designs by Richard Jupp, in 1799. The Company was dissolved in 1858 and the building demolished for street improvements in 1861.

Three almost identical drawings of the old East India House exist:

i. The present drawing. In 1851 the engraver Robert Graves, A.R.A. (1798-1873) owned a drawing which he considered to be by Vertue. In that year he made a reduction from which W.B. Rye made an etching. Subsequently Graves sold Vertue's drawing and it was lost sight of. In about 1920 Sir William Foster discovered the present drawing in a bookshop and felt convinced that it was the missing drawing by Vertue. He recorded the following note (2 June 1924): 'That this drawing is the work of George Vertue is shown (1) by the lettering, which is in the handwriting of that artist (cf. Addl. MS. 23069 in the British Museum); (2) by the statement on W.B. Rye's etching (1851) that the latter was based on 'a copy of a drawing by Vertue' (see I.O.L. scrapbook X661).

ii. A drawing in the Department of Prints and Drawings, British Museum (Crowle's ‘Grangerized Pennant,’ xil, no.68) dated 1711.

iii. A drawing (‘London prospects,’ v, 65) recently found in the Library of the Society of Antiquaries by Mr. S. Rowland Pierce. This he considers to be Vertue's original drawing of which (i) and (ii) are copies. It is amongst the Harleian collection of the 2nd Earl of Oxford, purchased by the Society of Antiquaries in 1741, which includes a number of other drawings by Vertue.

Of the three versions, (iii) is clearly the best in quality. There is greater recession and the wash is more subtly graduated. Details such as the mouldings of the building, the figures and the ships are drawn more delicately than in (i) and (ii). The figure on the balcony has clearly been added, for the lines of the balcony show through the figure, whereas in the other drawings they are not apparent. The British Museum drawing is clearly of inferior quality. (iii) must therefore be accepted as Vertue's original version.

Mr. Pierce suggests that the India Office Library drawing may be a contemporary copy of the Society of Antiquaries' drawing by Vertue's brother-in-law, David Chandler, who is known to have made many drawings for Vertue (see Society of Antiquaries, ‘Prints and drawings 1750,’ with drawings of Newhall, Essex, by Chandler). This, he argues, might explain the presence of Vertue's handwriting on the India Office Library drawing. On the other hand, the Library's drawing may still be, as Foster thought, by Vertue himself-in which case it is a second version by him based on his original drawing (iii).