View of Southwark High Street

Louise Raynor's watercolour hows activity in a courtyard near the Old Tabard Inn, Southwark.

The premises depicted are the sites of numerous merchants and trading companies. Outside the inn a group of men can been seen talking in the sunshine while another man carries a basket towards the entrance of the brewery. Women tend to laundry in the streets and hang it out to dry. A number of parked carts, chickens and milk pales are depicted in the foreground.

Raynor painted numerous views of London street scenes during her career. She was born into a family of artists and initially began working with oils. Between 1852 and 1860 she exhibited oil paintings at the Royal Academy but from the 1860s onwards she began to eschew oil in favour of watercolour as a medium. Raynor continued to work with watercolour until her death in 1924.