London's lost view: the Prévost panorama

In late 1815, as the Napoleonic Wars drew to a close, French artist Pierre Prévost took the opportunity to visit London, where he created this 360° view. It was painted from the tower of St Margaret’s church, in the shadow of Westminster Abbey. Click through this gallery of images to see Prévost's view of London and how it's changed over the centuries.

In the early 19th century, panoramas were an extremely popular form of entertainment. These huge 360° landscape paintings gave visitors an immersive experience, placing the viewer into the scene and allowing them to experience it almost first-hand.

This is the most important topographical image the Museum of London has acquired since the Rhinebeck Panorama in 1998. Measuring 85 cm high x 605 cm wide, it is certainly the largest. Yet, it is merely the study for a now lost canvas. When Prévost’s larger panorama was first displayed in Paris, in a purpose built rotunda, it measured approximately 32 metres in diameter.

The panorama testifies to London’s magnetic attraction as a city and the capital of a world power. Its focus on London on as a seat of political power complements the Rhinebeck Panorama, which has mercantile London at its heart, exemplified by the City, the Pool of London and the wharves of Bermondsey. Furthermore, in contrast to the Rhinebeck Panorama, which looks west, Prévost’s view looks in all directions at once, revealing an astonishingly low-rise city, punctuated only by church steeples and factory chimneys, and the dominating mass of St Paul’s.