The Crystal Palace

Hyde Park & Penge Common, London, England, UK

Burned 1936

The Disappointed Tourist: Crystal Palace, Ellen Harvey, 2021. Oil and acrylic on Gessoboard, 18 x 24″ (46 x 61 cm). Photograph: Etienne Frossard.

The Crystal Palace was a plate glass and cast-iron building, designed by Joseph Paxton to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. After the exhibition, the Palace was relocated from Hyde Park to Penge Common where it stood from 1854 until its destruction by fire in 1936. The nearby residential area and the Crystal Palace Football Club were named after the landmark. The painting is based on Dickinsons’ Comprehensive Pictures of The Great Exhibition of 1851 from the originals painted for H. R. H. Prince Albert by Messrs Nash, Haghe, and Roberts R.A.

Because it was an amazing glass building.  Anon.  

The building that I always wished had not been destroyed is the Crystal Palace exhibition hall that was built in London in  1851, that was moved and then eventually destroyed.  Julia K.

I used to live around Crystal Palace – which of course burned down – how disappointing and more besides. Mary W.