Shot Mill, Southbank, London

Lawrence Josset (YMGW passim), master of the mezzotint and described as a "magnificent anachronism" in his obituary in The Independent, was a prolific drawer and engraver of London scenes. There is no catalogue raisonné of his work, and internet searches keep turning up further items. The latest is Shot Mill, a pen and ink drawing with watercolour wash, 22 x 14½ inches in size, in the hands of Peter Harrington, dealer in rare books and works on paper.

The work is described as circa 1980, but that can't be right. The image shows Waterloo Bridge, designed by our old friend Sir Giles Gilbert Scott and, west of this, on the south side of the river, the Royal Festival Hall under construction. The foundation stone of the RFH was laid in 1949. The shot tower was kept as a feature during the 1951 Festival of Britain, and demolished when the Queen Elizabeth Hall was built in the sixties. So, the scene is sometime between 1949 and 1951, and the drawing is likely to be contemporaneous.