A Tender Parting at the Grand Junction Canal.

‘A Tender Parting at The Grand Junction Canal’. c1801-1810.

 

I really love this early hand coloured print primarily I think for its early use of the comic strip concept of the ‘circled blurb’ of the utterances of the characters depicted in the boat and the rest above each of the figures. Bought at auction recently it shows a London merchant being entreated by his wife and daughter to avoid the dangers of travel to Uxbridge on the new fangled canal. As the building of the canal had got as far as Uxbridge by 1801 and parties of London society were enjoying the novelty of trips by barge from the capital out into the countryside, I think that the print must date from the first few years of the new century.

He Says-

 

She says-

 

The daughter blubs-

The boatman says-

 

This print prompted me to sort out some early views of the new canal which I will show in my next blog