Edmund Walker (fl. 1836-1872)

Dating to 1850, this watercolour was executed the year before the Great Exhibition opened in Hyde Park on 1 May 1851. Designed by Joseph Paxton (1803-1865), the Crystal Palace was built in just nine months, before being taken down at the end of the fair and re-erected in Sydenham, South London.
Little is known about Edmund Walker, but the date of the watercolour before the building's completion suggests that he worked for either Paxton, or the structural engineers Fox, Henderson & Co. Another version of this watercolour, and one of the interior of the Palace, also by Walker and dated 1851, are in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.