Lion Inn

Location Unknown

Above painting by William Burgess, depicting the Lion Inn.

Plaque in painting. Signed and dated 1834.

Above showing the sales label.

Above showing close-up of the Lion Inn.

Mary Smith from Houston in Texas, USA, has an original William Burgess oil painting that depicts a pub identified as the Lion Inn, signed and dated by William Burgess 1834. Unfortunately at present I am not sure which pub this would have been, indeed if a Kent pub at all.

Not to be confused for William Burges (with one S) an English architect and designer who in 1859 began work with Ambrose Poynter on the Maison Dieu, Dover, which was completed in 1861.

I have reference to a couple of artists with the name of William Burgess. One was the eminent Dover artist William Burgess (1805-1861). Burgess was a painter and drawing master, who specialised in local Dover subjects, which sometimes featured military and naval elements. The dates suggest this is the William Burgess in question.

Another being  William Burgess (c.1749 – 1812) was another English artist. The son of Thomas Burgess of the Maiden Lane Academy, he was a painter and art teacher. He showed at the Royal Academy between 1774 and 1811, and also at the Society of Artists and the Free Society of Artists. His exhibited works included portraits (some noted as drawings in the catalogues), drawings of animals, and landscapes, many of them of Welsh subjects. London addresses are given throughout his career: in Maiden Lane, Covent Garden; Kemp's Town Chelsea; Gloucester Street, Queen's Square; Great Maddox Street; Piccadilly; Michael's Grove, Brompton, and finally, from 1797, Sloane Square, Chelsea. He died in London in 1812, aged 63. His son, H. W. Burgess, was landscape painter to William IV. This William Burgess would have been too early to have painted this picture.