L'Institut de France on the Seine, Nôtre Dame beyond, Paris

Boys moved to Paris in the mid 1820s, remaining there until 1837 when he returned to London. The present drawing is a sketch, related to one of his most characteristic works and favourite subjcts, a version of which is in the Yale Center for British Art (J. Roundell, Thomas Shotter Boys, London, 1974, pp. 78, pl. 15). This view was particularly popular. A comparable view by Bonington is in the British Museum (op.cit., p. 94, for further details on the development of this composition.) Boys's panoramic watercolour of this view (op.cit., pl. 27) is in fact based on a long, panoramic drawing by William Callow, Victoria and Albert Museum, Boys's tracing of which is in the British Museum.