A scarce series of privately-published etchings of shipping in the London Dockyards. This section of Henry Moses' publication comprises his complete series on London's Docklands. An advertisement in the Quarterly Review (1826) shows that he had then published altogether six parts of his Sketches of Shippng by that date, with a further two announced. The six parts contained five engravings each. The first ten etchings depicted shipping on the Thames, the second ten showed Sheerness and the Medway while the final ten depicted life on London's docks.

A scarce series of privately-published etchings of shipping in the London Dockyards. This section of Henry Moses' publication comprises his complete series on London's Docklands. An advertisement in the Quarterly Review (1826) shows that he had then published altogether six parts of his Sketches of Shippng by that date, with a further two announced. The six parts contained five engravings each. The first ten etchings depicted shipping on the Thames, the second ten showed Sheerness and the Medway while the final ten depicted life on London's docks.

The present copy, lettered in ink "Nos 5 & 6", actually contains 11 plates although the advertisement in fact only calls for nine plates in the these two parts. There are five with the shared title "London Docks" as against four called for in the advertisement, while the eleventh plate, differing in style to the others, probably comes from an earlier part.

1. Vessels off the Tower (Two-masted ship with numerous sightseers in rowed boats in the foreground)

2. Limehouse (Sailing ship being unloaded by crane at pier. A sailing barge is on the river. In the foreground a rowing boat and anchor are visible on the shore).

3. Blackwall Reach with the Columbus in the Distance (A cutter in Blackwall Reach with another beyond on the right. The four-masted barque Columbus, a vast, 300-foot Canadian-built experimental timber carrier, is seen as a long grey hull in the distance stretching from the centre or the image to the right edge).

4. Limehouse (Sailing ship moored at Limehouse with rowing boats and barges unloading barrels).

5. A West Indiaman in Cox & Curlin's Yard Limehouse (the substantial docks later known as Limehouse Yard, where very large vessels could be built)

6. London Docks (Men sitting on timber slabs, ship with sails hanging loose behind in dock)

7. London Docks (Barge in front of stern of ship at dock, sails up and catching the wind two ships to left, one making way)

8. London Docks (Numerous ships at anchor, sails drying, tender at centre with barrels being rowed by two men)

9. London Docks (Large three-master in dock. tender with barrels in front, dockside showing a sluicegate)

10. London Docks (Two ladies in a boat rowed by a man, three ships behind wiht sails loose)

11. Trafalgar 120 Guns (Different in style to the other plates, close-up view of the hull of recently launched Trafalgar at dock.)

Henry Moses (c.1782-1870) was prolific and "worked throughout the first half of the present century, enjoying a great reputation for his outline plates, which are distinguished for the purity and correctness of the drawing. His art was peculiarly suited to the representation of sculpture and antiquities, and he published many sets of plates of that class; he was one of the engravers employed upon the official publication Ancient Marbles in the British Museum, 1812-1845" (DNB). This delightful series was one that he produced on his own account. It is very scarce on the market. The British Museum's set, for example, comprises just the first four parts bound together. Only a reissued version by Ackermann of 1837 is recorded in Australian libraries (and that only held by the National Library and the Vaughan Evans Library at the Australian National Maritime Museum).

Appendix 1:

Quarterly Review ad in 1826:

Sketches of Shipping on the Thames, the Medway, and in the Dockyards, drawn and engraved by Henry Moses.

Nos. 1. to 6. containing the following plates:

[Parts 1-2]

[1] A Sailing Match near Vauxhall Bridge.

[2] An India-man in Barnard's Yard, Deptford.

[3] The City Canal.

[4] Wellington Indiaman in Blackwall Basin.

[5] Another View of the same.

[6] Stern View of ditto.

[7] The Basin at Blackwall

[8] Surat Castle Indiaman in the Basin.

[9] A Dance on Board an Indiaman in the Basin.

[10] Part of Blackwall Yard, with View of the River.

[Parts 3-4]

[11] Waterman in his Boat in the Medwuy.

[12] View on the Medway.

[13] Shipping off Sheerness.

[14] Hulks at Sheerness.

[15] The Trafalgar of 120 guns, in the Basin, Sheerness.

[16] Bow View of the same.

[17] Stern View of ditto.

[18] Entrance to the Basin, Sheerness.

[19] Part of Sheerness Yard from a Window of the Fountain Inn.

[20] Another View of the same.

[Parts 5-6]

Vessels off the Tower.

Limehouse.

Another View of the same.

Blackwall Reach, with the Columbus, in the distance.

A West Indiaman in Cox and Curlin's Yard, Limehouse.

London Docks. Four Views of the same.

Price on Imperial 8vo. 18s. A few Copies are printed on Imperial 4to. price 1L. 4s.

### Nos. 7. and 8., just published, containing 10 Views in Portsmouth Harbour.

Appendix 2:

Other works by Moses

The Decision of the Flower by Henry Moses after Moritz Retzsch, illustration to Goethe's Faust I

The Gallery of Pictures painted by Benjamin West, 12 plates, 1811 (patronage of Thomas Hope[2]);

A Collection of Antique Vases, Altars, &c., from various Museums and Collections, 170 plates, 1814;

Select Greek and Roman Antiquities, 36 plates, 1817;

Vases from the Collection of Sir Henry Englefield, 40 plates, 1819;

Examples of Ornamental Sculpture in Architecture, drawn by L. Vulliamy, 36 plates, 1823;

Illustrations to Goethe's Faust, after Moritz Retzsch, 26 plates, 1821;

Illustrations to Schiller's Fridolin and Fight with the Dragon, 1824 and 1825;

Georg Heinrich Noehden's Specimens of Ancient Coins of Magna Graecia and Sicily, 24 stipple plates, 1826;

Works of Canova, with text by Countess Albrizzi, 3 vols. 1824-8; and

Selections of Ornamental Sculpture from the Louvre, 9 plates, 1828.

Moses contributed many of the illustrations to James Hakewill's Tour of Italy, 1820, and Woburn Abbey Marbles, 1822. He etched from his own designs Picturesque Views of Ramsgate, 23 plates, 1817; Sketches of Shipping and Marine Sketch Book, 1824 (reissued by Ackermann, 1837); and Visit of William IV, when Duke of Clarence, to Portsmouth in 1827, 17 plates, 1830. Moses's final work was a set of twenty-two illustrations to Pilgrim's Progress, after Henry Courtney Selous, executed for the Art Union of London, 1844.[1]

Appendix 3:

DNB:

MOSES, HENRY (1782P-1870), engraver, worked throughout the first half of the present century, enjoying a great reputation for his outline plates, which are distinguished for the purity and correctness of the drawing. His art was peculiarly suited to the representation of sculpture and antiquities, and he published many sets of plates of that class ; he was one of the engravers employed upon the official publication ' Ancient Marbles in the British Museum,' 1812-1845. Of the works wholly executed by himself the most important are : ' The Gallery of Pictures painted by Benjamin West,' 12 plates, 1811 ; ' A Collection of Antique Vases, Altars, &c., from various Museums and Collections,' 170 plates, 1814 ; ' Select Greek and Roman Antiquities,' 36 plates, 1817 ; ' Vases from the Collection of Sir Henry Englefield,' 40 plates, 1819 ; ' Examples of Ornamental Sculpture in Architecture, drawn by L. Vulliamy,' 36 plates, 1823 ; illustrations to Goethe's ' Faust,' after Retzsch, 26 plates, 1821; illustrations to Schiller's 'Fridolin' and 'Fight with the Dragon,' 1824 and 1825 ; Noehden's 'Specimens of Ancient Coins of Magna Graecia and Sicily,' 24 stipple plates, 1826 ; ' Works of Canova,' with text by Countess Albrizzi, 3 vols. 1824-8 ; and ' Selections of Ornamental Sculpture from the Louvre,' 9 plates, 1828. Moses also contributed many of the illustrations to Hakewill's ' Tour of Italy,' 1820, and ' Woburn Abbey Marbles,' 1822 ; he etched from his own designs ' Picturesque Views of Ramsgate,' 23 plates, 1817 ; ' Sketches of Shipping ' and ' Marine Sketch Book,' 1824 (reissued by Ackermann, 1837); and ' Visit of William IV, when Duke of Clarence, to Portsmouth in 1827,' 17 plates, 1830. Moses's latest work was a set of twenty-two illustrations to ' Pilgrim's Progress,' after H. C. Selous, executed for the Art Union of London, 1844. He died at Cowley, Middlesex, 28 Feb. 1870. [Redgrave's Diet, of Artists ; Dodd's Collections in British Museum, Add. MS. 33403 ; Universal Cat. of Books on Art.] F. M. O'D.