Thirty-eight watercolours and drawings of Reading

Henry Clarke Pidgeon was a painter, engraver, lithographer and antiquary who specialised in landscape and architectural subjects but also painted portraits. This group of works on Reading contains a small number of interior views of buildings since pulled down, while several paintings give visual evidence of the use of certain buildings in Reading in the late 1830s before the town underwent expansion. Over and above the topographical interest of this collection lies the intimate charm of the rugged domesticity that many of the works exude, especially the interiors.