|
Robert Charles Goff 1837– 1922
Charing Cross Bridge c.1905 Etching on wove paper 10 ¼ × 7 inches (26 × 17.8 cm) Signed Goff was an army officer who served in the Crimean War and later with the Coldstream Guards. Aged forty, he left the military and took up printmaking, working in a Whistlerian manner. He lived in London and Brighton, the subjects of most of his prints, although he travelled extensively, living in Florence and later in Switzerland where he died. Rotten Row, the broad sandy track along the south edge of Hyde Park, was for centuries the most fashionable place for upper-class Londoners to be seen out riding. It was established by William III at the end of the seventeenth century, as a route from St. James’s to his new residence at Kensington Palace. With 300 oil lamps, it was the first artificially-lit highway in Britain. Known as the Route du Roi, which name was eventually corrupted into Rotten Row. |