The Wren Bridge, St John’s College, Cambridge

Engraving

35 x 24 cm

Signed as a cypher lower right.

A 1911 watercolour of St John’s College’s Wren Bridge, also known as the Kitchen Bridge. There had been a wooden bridge in this location since the early days of the medieval Hospital of St John the Evangelist. Christopher Wren had submitted designs to St John’s for a stone bridge in the 1690s, but building work did not commence until 1709. The Wren Bridge was completed in 1713. Its construction was overseen by Robert Grumbold, a local master stonemason and architect who was also responsible for building the Wren Library at Trinity College. The bridge reflects Wren’s design, although in his original drawings he had suggested urns and pyramids, which were never added. In this view, a lone figure gazes down from the bridge into the muddy waters of the River Cam.

Condition: very good.

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