| |
| | View of the Thames Estuary with Shipping (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-07) |
 | | Of all Britain’s rivers, the Thames is pre-eminent in its association with the capital. |
 | | London has always been one of the country’s great ports, and for this reason the Thames has long been an artery of trade and communication linking London with the regions inland, and, in the period before reliable year-round roads, the thoroughfare used by inhabitants of the towns and houses along its banks. |
 | | For these reasons, the Thames as it passes through London is a favourite subject of painters, whether as a facet of ideal landscape as in some many late eighteenth and nineteenth century views of the Thames at Richmond, or as in the example here, the great powerhouse of empire. |
| historicalportraits.com /p_view.asp?ID=12025rWqxgMjRrYMtT5kBnaINTx3BoF5 (915 words) |
|