Greenwich Hospital

This hand-coloured engraving depicts a view of Greenwich from the east, in vignette, with the buildings of Greenwich Hospital in the distance. A ship is breaming on the foreshore, and two men are opening a parcel in the foreground. The artist has added a spit of land in the middle distance, which does not exist in reality. Inscribed beneath the image with the title, ‘Greenwich Hospital’, and the names of the artist and engraver: ‘Drawn by H. Gastineau / Engraved by H. Adlard’.

The print was part of the title page of a publication, but it has been cut down. As a result, only the second half of the publication title remains: ‘…Seats of the Nobility and Gentry. Hospitals, Churches, Castellated & Monastic Ruins, &c. Accompanied by Historical and Biographical Notices’. This text seems to correspond to the subtitle of the Kent volume of ‘[George] Virtue's Picturesque Beauties of Great Britain’, published in 1828. However, the Greenwich vignette was replaced in subsequent editions of this text with a vignette of Canterbury, seen from Harbledown.