A Shoe Repairing Shop, Moscow Road, Bayswater

The artist Dorothy Belasco was drawn to this shoe repair shop in Moscow Road, as 'an example of a way of life fast fading into the past'. Shoes were the most expensive item of clothing. They were repaired until they fell apart. Shoe repairing was a skilled trade and most repairers owned their own businesses on the high street.

Dorothy Belasco gave the painting to the London Museum in 1957, along with some etchings made in 1915 of the Jewish East End. In a letter to the Director of the London Museum, she explained: 'My art work has brought me much content all through my life and it did seem right and proper that now in my elder years, the few works of mine still in my possession should be given in gratitude as a thankful gift to my country'.