Covent Garden Piazza and Market

This view of Covent Garden by the Flemish painter Joseph van Aken shows the busy marketplace in the piazza. Van Aken came to London from Antwerp in around 1720. He lived on King Street in Covent Garden with his brother Alexander. Van Aken is best known for his drapery painting from which he made a handsome living. He worked for a number of prominent London artists, including the fashionable portrait painter Thomas Hudson.

This rare cityscape by van Aken captures his own neighbourhood in a period of transformation. The piazza is viewed looking east with St Paul's Church just visible on the left side. The structure with the triangular roof on the right side is Tom King's Coffee House. King, a rogue Eton scholar, ran the establishment with his wife, Moll. It became notorious as a haunt of drunks and sex workers. Coffee houses and brothels were becoming common features of the area at this time.

The Covent Garden piazza was designed for Francis Russell, 4th Earl of Bedford, by Inigo Jones. It established a model for the subsequent development of residential squares in London. The market began operating in the mid seventeenth century. By van Aken's time the noise and traffic of the market had driven many of the piazza's aristocratic residents away to the suburbs. The houses on the piazza were purchased by middle class people including a number of fashionable artists and writers. The piazza became London's biggest and most famous fruit, vegetable and flower market. It was gradually built up during this period with the row of sheds seen in this view being constructed for stall holders. There were also shops and stalls in the arcades around the edges of the piazza. A Hackney carriage can be seen in the background to the left. The tall column in the middle of the piazza is a sundial.