George Jones made a pair of sketches inside Westminster Abbey during the coronation of King William IV and Queen Adelaide on 26 June 1830. Almost ten years earlier Jones had produced a large oil painting for the then Prime Minister Lord Liverpool depicting The Banquet at the Coronation of George IV (1821-22; Royal Collection). He may have intended to work these sketches up to produce a similar large oil painting of the scene at this later coronation but if there ever was such a work its whereabouts is unknown. His presence at the coronation may have been the result of a proposed commission or because he had worked for the royal family. Soane, as far as we know, was not present.

Jones was known for producing large-scale works recording famous military victories and national events. He won a prize for his Battle of Waterloo in 1820 (Royal Hospital, Chelsea - where it hangs in an interior designed by Soane) and painted battle scenes for George IV (Royal Collection) and other military subjects for a wide variety of clients. His entry in the Dictionary of National Biography notes that he created ‘what are probably the most reliable records' of great occasions such as The Prince Regent Received by the City and University of Oxford, June 1814 (Magdalen College Oxford), The Conferment of Degrees on Allied Sovereigns in the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford), The Passing of the Great Emancipation Act (1829; Yale University, CBA) as well as The Opening of the New London Bridge, 1831 commissioned by Soane.

This sketch, and its pair, hang in frames that are recreations of the originals, made for the Museum in 2015-16 by Joseph McCarthy Mirrors and Frames of Tunbridge Wells. They are hung against blue mounts, based on the distinctive coloured mounts shown in a watercolour of the North Drawing Room made in preparation for Soane's 1835 Description of his house.These were recreated by the Museum's consultant Paper Conservator Lorraine Bryant.

P250, pair