Entrance to the Fleet River, London

Entrance to the Fleet River records the mouth of London's most significant tributary, which flowed from Hampstead Heath south to the Thames at Blackfriars. By Scott's time the Fleet was largely an open sewer, and it would be covered over in stages during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, making his view one of the last visual records of this once-important waterway. Samuel Scott occupied the commanding position in British marine and topographical painting for three decades, filling the gap left by the death of the van de Veldes and not finally superseded until the emergence of Nicholas Pocock and J.M.W. Turner.

The narrow river entrance creates an intimate composition framed by riverside buildings, quite different from Scott's expansive Thames panoramas. The careful rendering of the surrounding architecture documents structures that would soon be demolished for the river's enclosure.