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Slippers

William Marshall Craig

1804

watercolor

From the collection of Victoria and Albert Museum

Romanticism Early 19th Century

Dominant colour

Slippers is a 1804 watercolor by William Marshall Craig, a Romanticism work, held at Victoria and Albert Museum.

Who painted this?: William Marshall Craig
When & what style?: 1804 · Romanticism
Where can I see it?: Victoria and Albert Museum

About this work

This painting shows a man selling slippers on a street. He's dressed in traditional Ottoman clothing. You can see the details of his costume and the slippers he's selling. The interesting thing about this work is that it shows a specific person and place. It's a portrait of a real person selling slippers in London. To learn more about the artist's use of light and shadow, look into the technique: chiaroscuro.

The story of this work

Overview

The watercolour depicts an Ottoman Turk selling Morocco leather slippers outside Somerset House in London’s Strand, a scene later reproduced as an aquatint in Richard Phillips’ 1804 guidebook *Modern London*. The trader, portrayed in traditional attire, maintained a reserved demeanour while selling slippers priced at one shilling sixpence or two shillings per pair, targeting wealthy bankers and merchants in nearby streets. This work is part of a series of ten street-vendor scenes by William Marshall Craig, acquired by the V&A in 1874, illustrating the diversity of London’s itinerant traders…

Read the full account in the museum source.