Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1981.25.216
Gallery Label:
In the foreground, a group of women and children gather around a pensioner from London’s Greenwich Hospital, a home for retired sailors, located at the bottom of the hill. The loss of his leg speaks to the human cost behind the prosperity enjoyed by those walking through the park. The view from Greenwich Hill across the Thames had long been popular with artists, but by the time Dawson painted this canvas, large swathes of the capital had been given over to factories that manufactured goods from materials from across the globe while belching smoke into the sky. The river was not only the city’s central artery but also connected it to its port and, by extension, to the rest of the British Empire. Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2025