A View of Leicester Square, London

The large building at the centre of this engraving is Leicester House, built for Robert Sidney, 2nd Earl of Leicester in 1635. The house originally stood alone in Leicester Fields before the square was laid out in 1670, after which it was joined by other grand residences. By 1753 the square was fully developed with an equestrian statue of King George I in the centre.

The house at the far right of the print was the residence and studio of the artist William Hogarth, who moved there in 1733. Number 31, known as the ‘Golden Head’ was marked, in the manner of a shop sign, by a cork-bust of the painter Anthony Van Dyck mounted above the door. Two Italianate obelisks on the opposite side of the square mark the front door of number 47, which became the home of the portrait painter Sir Joshua Reynolds in 1760.

In front of Leicester house are a row of retail booths. Wealthy residents are being carried in sedan chairs, some accompanied by liveried footmen, while other passengers travel in carriages. In the foreground a drover drives cattle and sheep, a clergyman waits on the pavement, a man lounges smoking a pipe and a street seller with a boy sells goods from a basket on her head.

This engraving may be an example of a ‘perspective view’, designed to be viewed through a lens to give the illusion of depth.