[G.W.]
G.W.'s Transparencies: The Thames Tunnel
London: Reeves & Sons, Cheapside; W. Morgan, 64 Hatton Garden; T. Fisher, 1 Hanway Street, Oxford Street; J. Reynolds, 174 Strand; E. Wilson, Jun., 16 King William Street, [c. 1838].
Single hand-colored aquatint lithograph transparency. Image size 13 × 18 cm, mounted on a backing sheet measuring 23 × 30 cm. A luminous transparency print depicting the Thames Tunnel as engineered by Sir Marc Isambard Brunel and his son, Isambard Kingdom Brunel. The scene features delicately colored gas lamps lining the tunnel’s interior arches. To enhance the visual illusion, each lamp has been punctured and backed with tissue, creating the effect of glowing light when the sheet is held against a strong light source.
An early and rare example of British optical printmaking, this transparency reflects the widespread public fascination with the Thames Tunnel project—the world’s first tunnel built beneath a navigable river, completed in 1843 but opened to pedestrians in 1843 after decades of engineering difficulty.
Condition:
Fine. Crisp, clean sheet with original hand-coloring well preserved. No tears, stains, or repairs. Original tissue backing intact behind punctured gas lamps.
Collector’s Corner:
This transparency was issued as part of G.W.’s Transparencies, a lesser-known but finely executed series of optical prints issued in the late 1830s. Retail price was listed at four or five shillings per transparency—a relatively expensive novelty print at the time. Other known views from the associated G.W.'s Dioramic Views include The Church of St. Juan the Divine, A Village Destroyed by an Avalanche, Netley Abbey, Italian Bandits, Fisherman’s Hut, French Smugglers, and A Canal and Windmill Scene.
The Thames Tunnel itself was a marvel of Victorian engineering, designed by the Brunels and promoted heavily in popular print culture. Transparency views like this served as a kind of proto-cinema: viewers held them before candlelight or sunlight to experience a glowing, three-dimensional scene. The use of punctured holes with tissue backing is a sophisticated touch found in only the more elaborate examples.
About the Publisher: Reeves & Sons
Reeves & Sons was founded in 1766 by William Reeves (1739–1803), a color manufacturer credited—along with his partner Thomas Reeves—with the invention of the portable watercolor cake. After William’s death, the firm was managed by his son William John Reeves, and later became Reeves & Sons following his passing in 1827. By the 1830s, the company was actively publishing artistic novelties, transparencies, and dioramic views in collaboration with other London printmakers. The National Portrait Gallery and Victoria & Albert Museum hold substantial documentation on Reeves & Sons and their contributions to 19th-century print and color production.