1816
From the collection of Victoria and Albert Museum
View of the Great Staircase is a 1816 by William Kent, a Romanticism work, held at Victoria and Albert Museum.
This print shows a grand staircase inside a royal palace. William Kent made it in 1816. It’s a colored print, not a painting. The image comes from a three-volume book about royal homes. The project cost so much it nearly ruined the publisher. Kent’s work helps us see how these palaces looked long ago. Check out the Victoria and Albert Museum for more prints like this.
The print is a hand-finished aquatint depicting the Great Staircase at Kensington Palace, executed in a single tint with additional colors applied manually. It illustrates the staircase as enlarged and decorated by William Kent between 1725 and 1727, featuring a trompe l'oeil balustrade adorned with figures from George I's court. The image is one of one hundred interior views commissioned by William Henry Pyne for his multi-volume survey of royal residences published between 1816 and 1819. The series serves as a detailed record of early 19th-century palace interiors, particularly their design…
Read the full account in the museum source.
William Kent (c. 1685 – 12 April 1748) was an English architect, landscape architect, painter and furniture designer of the early 18th century. He began his career as a painter, and became Principal Painter in Ordinary…
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