Tickets and Passes of London from the David Young Collection

Gardens, TICKETS and PASSES, Gardens, LAMBETH, Vauxhall Gardens [Jonathan Tyers], A Ridotto al’ Fresco [1732], an engraved admission ticket, unsigned, cherubs dancing against a tented background of trees, 30 x 22cm. Some foxing at edges, otherwise very fine, rare £200-300

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Tickets and Passes of London from the David Young Collection.

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Provenance: Bt Valerie Harris June 2002.

Sir John Hawkins, in his General History of Music (1776), states: ‘About the year 1730, Mr. Jonathan Tyers became the occupier of it, and, there being a large garden belonging to it, planted with a great number of stately trees, and laid out in shady walks, it obtained the name of Spring Gardens; and the house being converted into a tavern, or place of entertainment, was much frequented by the votaries of pleasure. Mr Tyers opened it [in 1732] with an advertisement of a Ridotto al Fresco, a term which the people of this country had till that time been strangers to. These entertainments were repeated in the course of the summer, and numbers resorted to partake of them. This encouraged the proprietor to make his garden a place of musical entertainment, for every evening during the summer season’