Wooded Landscape, Repton's Red Book for 'Sunderidge', Bromley, London

Humphry Repton (1752-1818) set out to be the leading landscape gardener of his time and famously created Red Books for his clients. Repton’s Red Books were a unique marketing tool. Compiled after he had visited a client, walking their grounds and discussing the landscape’s potential, the books are filled with watercolours showing ‘before’ and ‘after’ scenes. Lifting a paper flap, or reveal, shows a view transformed. Repton described his Red Books as a ‘means of making my ideas equally visible, or intelligible to others’. This drawing shows the 'before' landscape from the Red Book Repton created for 'Sunderidge' [Sundridge Park] in Bromley, South East London.