'Historic' drawing of first passenger railway dismissed as a fake
Thursday 12 June 2008
Latest in News
Related stories
On Facebook
Arts & Ents blogs
Heidi: I don’t want my night to ever fizzle off, I want to finish it with an explosion
In Miami last year I discovered a DJ named Heidi Van Den Amstel, who played a brilliant set at Sunda...
Becoming Damien Hirst? You’re not the first
Damien Hirst, the richest, probably most famous, contemporary living artist, once remarked: “I don't...
The Photography Blog: Rise of the smartphone, but smart photography too?
Assuming Mark Zuckerberg hasn’t got his sums wrong, the market for smartphone photography is booming...
A drawing of the first passenger railway, supposedly dating from 1809 and attributed to the great English caricaturist Thomas Rowlandson, has been dismissed as a clumsy forgery.
The picture, bequeathed to the Science Museum in London, has for decades been hailed as showing one of the defining moments in transport history. But John Liffen, a curator at the museum, believes the work is one of three fakes produced in about 1905. It shows the earliest passenger railway – a "steam circus" erected in 1808 near the site of the present-day Euston station by the Cornish engineer Richard Trevithick.
Among the drawing's more glaring inconsistencies, Mr Liffen argues, is a church steeple that was not built until 1826 and rows of houses which were erected on fields in the late 19th century. The paper used for the drawing also includes traces of woodpulp – which was not used until much later than 1809.
Mr Liffen believes the "historic" work is wrongly credited to Rowlandson, who died in 1827. His drawings and satirical cartoons experienced a renaissance in the early 1900s, which led to a surge in the number of forgeries in circulation. "Rowlandson's work was growing quite popular by the 1920s and there were forgeries being introduced on to the market," said Mr Liffen. "Some think there was a factory for producing Rowlandson works around this period. [The drawing] was produced at a time when there was money to be made from forgeries. When I looked at it, it just didn't smell right to me."
The only reliable images of Trevithick's railway were likely to have been drawn by W J Welch in the 1870s, Mr Liffen added.
- 1 The 20 best audiobooks
- 2 Graham Coxon: All a blur
- 3 'Sluttish stars harm youngsters,' says Mike Stock
- 4 Leonardo da Vinci and the body beautiful
- 5 First Night: Confession of a Child of the Century, Cannes Festival
- 6 Messy, dirty, rough. 'Lawless' in Cannes...
- 7 Album: John Mayer, Born and Raised (Columbia)
- 8 Joe Strummer: The angry young man who grew up
- 9 Ireland mourns comic talent as 'Father Ted' actor dies, aged 45
- 10 Grace Dent on Television: The Exclusives, ITV2
- 1 Robert Fisk: The Belfast hotel where you check in but never leave
- 2 Philip Hensher: Will nobody mourn the death of classical music?
- 3 Portugal 'sells' Ronaldo to Spain in £160m deal on national debt
- 4 Owen Jones: Hatred of those on benefits is dangerously out of control
- 5 Allardyce proves substance can triumph over style
- 6 Villas-Boas refuses to be rushed over Liverpool job
- 7 Ireland mourns comic talent as 'Father Ted' actor dies, aged 45
- 8 French in uproar over oral sex anti-smoking posters
- 9 Robert Fisk: Megrahi is dead. Now we'll never know the truth about Lockerbie
- 10 Coke reveals its secret: It may need to carry a cancer warning
Experience the Heineken Hub
Get free wi-fi and exclusive i content while you enjoy a tasty pint of Heineken at participating pubs.
Can you imagine a career in teaching?
Be inspired to teach - let real teachers show you how rewarding the job can be.
Keeping pace with the London 2012 Games
Cisco is providing the solutions for London 2012's complex IT needs.
Enter the latest Independent competitions
Win anything from gadgets to five-star holidays on our competitions and offers page.
Business videos from commercial thought leaders
Watch the best in the business world give their insights into the world of business.
Career Services
Pathetic fantasist or Nazi spy? The mysterious Mrs O'Grady



Comments