The subjects of these very different views were probably specified to Wyld by his patrons, as they accord closely with Victoria’s journal entries for the couple’s visit to Manchester and Liverpool in October 1851. In Liverpool she and Albert admired the newly built concert venue, St George’s Hall; staying just outside Manchester, the Queen remarked upon seeing ‘endless chimneys & factories rise around’ in the direction of the city. Wyld’s take on the great industrial city is romantic; the idyllic pastoral foreground contrasts atmospherically with the line of smoking chimneys in the middle distance.
