Old London Bridge and Vicinity

Turner captures the congestion of his native city, which was then emerging as a major commercial hub. Throngs of sailors and fisherman, as well as commercial goods, seem to spill out of the image in the foreground. In the distance, a barge has been forced to lower its mast in order to pass beneath the low arches of Old London Bridge, by then obsolete. The bridge was demolished a few years later, in 1830.