Oil paint on canvas
Tate Britain
Tate Collection
Works with images
Works on display
General Collection
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/balthazar-nebot-398" aria-label="More by Balthazar Nebot" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Balthazar Nebot</a>
Covent Garden Market
Purchased 1895
actions: expressive
adults
animals: mammals
arcade
architecture
audience
basket
beckoning
beggar
boxer
boxing
children
church
class
classical
Covent Garden, King Street
Covent Garden, Piazza
crowd
dog - non-specific
England
equestrian and sporting
features
fence
fighting
flag, Union Flag
food and drink
fruit - non-specific
girl
groups
health and welfare
house
leisure and pastimes
lifestyle and culture
man
market
objects
people
periods and styles
places
public and municipal
recreational activities
religious
religious and ceremonial
residential
scientific and measuring
social comment
society
sport
square
sundial
talking
townscapes / man-made features
trader
trading and commercial
UK countries and regions
UK London
urban environment
vegetable - non-specific
vessels and containers
walking
woman
work and occupations
<p>Nebot’s view of Covent Garden looks west towards St Paul’s Church. It records the activities and architecture of Covent Garden which, by the 1730s, was at the heart of London’s artistic community. It was a popular urban subject, also painted by Samuel Scott, among others. The market was first developed in the 1650s. Twenty years later the Earl of Bedford was given permission to ‘hold forever a market in the Piazza on every day in the year except Sundays and Christmas Day for the buying and selling of all manner of fruit, flowers, roots and herbs’.</p><p><em>Gallery label, February 2016</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
22 October 2001 – 27 June 2004
2004-06-27
22 October 2001 – 27 June 2004
2004-06-27
2001-10-22
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2001-10-22
Hogarth and the Theatre of Life
Collection based display
12 July 2004 – 20 June 2005
2005-06-20
12 July 2004
2004-07-12
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2004-07-12
Portraits and Perspectives
Collection based display
18 October 2006 – 7 January 2007
2007-01-07
21 May 2007 – 26 August 2007
2007-08-26
2007-05-21
CaixaForum Barcelona (Barcelona, Spain)
http://www3.lacaixa.es
2006-10-18
Hogarth
Loan-out
7 February 2007 – 29 April 2007
2007-04-29
18 October 2006 – 7 January 2007
2007-01-07
2006-10-18
Musée du Louvre (Paris, France)
7 February 2007 – 29 April 2007
2007-04-29
2007-02-07
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
21 May 2007 – 26 August 2007
2007-08-26
2007-05-21
CaixaForum Barcelona (Barcelona, Spain)
http://www3.lacaixa.es
2007-02-07
Hogarth
Exhibition
12 October 2007 – 31 October 2010
2010-10-31
12 October 2007 – 31 October 2010
2010-10-31
2007-10-12
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2007-10-12
Hogarth and London
Collection based display
30 September 2017 – 19 September 2021
2021-09-19
30 September 2017 – 25 February 2018
2018-02-25
2017-09-30
Victoria and Albert Museum (London, UK)
http://www.vam.ac.uk
10 January 2019 – 14 March 2019
2019-03-14
2019-01-10
Royal Opera House Muscat (Muscat, Oman)
25 April 2019 – 4 August 2019
2019-08-04
2019-04-25
CaixaForum Madrid (Madrid, Spain)
10 September 2019 – 26 January 2020
2020-01-26
2019-09-10
CaixaForum Barcelona (Barcelona, Spain)
http://www3.lacaixa.es
2017-09-30
Opera: City
Loan-out
Covent Garden Market
support: 648 × 1228 mm
frame: 876 × 1460 × 80 mm
Purchased 1895
<div class="text">
<p>Balthazar Nebot’s view of Covent Garden looks west towards St Paul’s Church. It depicts the activities and architecture of Covent Garden which, by the 1730s, was at the heart of London’s artistic community. It was a popular urban subject for painters. The market was first developed in the 1650s. 20 years later, the Earl of Bedford was given permission to ‘hold forever a market in the Piazza on every day in the year except Sundays and Christmas Day for the buying and selling of all manner of fruit, flowers, roots and herbs.’</p>
</div>

Online caption
2023-11-29T00:00:00
online-caption
ONLINE_CAPTION
<p><a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/nebot-covent-garden-market-n01453" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N01453</span></a> <b>Covent Garden Market</b> 1737
<br/></p>
<p>Oil on canvas 640×1230 (25 1/2×48 3/8)
<br/>Inscribed ‘B.Nebot. F. 1737’ along the edge of the market-woman's stool to the left of the rails, lower left of centre
<br/>Purchased by the National Gallery 1895; transferred to the Tate Gallery 1955
<br/>PROVENANCE ...; Lord Dover (?by 1833–6), by descent to 4th Viscount Clifden, by whose executors sold Robinson &amp; Fisher 25 May 1895 (? 686 as by Pugh) bt for the National Gallery
<br/>EXHIBITED On long loan to London Museum, <i>c.</i>1945–65
<br/>LITERATURE C.H. Collins-Baker, ‘Nebot and Boitard’, <i>Connoisseur</i>, LXXV, 1926, p.3, fig.1. Also repr.: <i>Survey of London</i>, XXXVI, 1970, pl.28a, wrongly dated 1735
<br/></p>
<p>This view is from the south-east of the Piazza, near the Russell Street entrance, looking west, showing the east (sham entrance) front of St Paul's Church, the sundial column surmounted by a sphere erected in the centre of the Piazza in 1668–9 (demolished 1790) and King Street with part of the north side of the Piazza on the right.
<br/>
<br/>Fruit and vegetable stalls and booths line the south side of the Piazza. It was from this side that the market developed. Described as ‘new’ in 1654, the market was authorized by letters patent obtained by the Earl of Bedford (as landlord) in 1670, authorizing him and his heirs (later Dukes of Bedford) ‘to hold forever a market in the Piazza on every day in the year except Sundays and Christmas Day for the buying and selling of all manner of fruit, flowers, roots and herbs’. Some brick-built permanent shops were erected along the south side in 1678; more were added in 1705–6 (only one corner of these is visible in Nebot's view: the others are out of sight on the left). Compared with the crowded scene in Samuel Scott's ‘Covent Garden Piazza and Market’ of <i>c.</i>1754–8 (in the collection of the Duke of Bedford, repr. <i>Survey of London</i>, XXXVI, 1970, frontispiece) the market in Nebot's view is quite small. The size and diversity of the market increased rapidly from <i>c.</i>1740; by the early nineteenth century it extended over the whole of the Piazza.
<br/>
<br/>Noting the date of 1737 on this picture, Collins-Baker (1926) comments that ‘only two years later than Hogarth's <i>Rake's Progress</i>, and nine years before Canaletto's arrival in England, Nebot was producing ... <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/g/genres" title="Glossary definition for 'Genres'"><span>genre</span></a> combined with the sort of topographical <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>painting</span></a> which we usually regard as post-Canaletto’.
<br/>A version possibly by another hand, with a few small variations, was sold at Christie's 26 October 1945 (137). Another, with several extra figures, is in Lord Lonsdale's collection.</p>
<p>
<br/><b>Published in:</b>
<br/>Elizabeth Einberg and Judy Egerton, <i>The Age of Hogarth: British Painters Born 1675-1709</i>, Tate Gallery Collections, II, London 1988
<br/></p>

Catalogue entry
2004-09-23T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
actions: expressive adults animals: mammals arcade architecture audience basket beckoning beggar boxer boxing children church class classical Covent Garden, King Street Covent Garden, Piazza crowd dog - non-specific England equestrian and sporting features fence fighting flag, Union Flag food and drink fruit - non-specific girl groups health and welfare house leisure and pastimes lifestyle and culture man market objects people periods and styles places public and municipal recreational activities religious religious and ceremonial residential scientific and measuring social comment society sport square sundial talking townscapes / man-made features trader trading and commercial UK countries and regions UK London urban environment vegetable - non-specific vessels and containers walking woman work and occupations