A pen and watercolour drawing of a view in Hyde Park of the encampment set up during the Gordon Riots in 1780. Several white tents behind, and a woman ironing a sheet on the grass. Several soldiers and a drummer boy. With an auctioneer's lot 2-84/1 connecting the drawing to the Paul Sandby estate sale, 3 May 1811, lot 84.

From 1774, Paul Sandby lived opposite Hyde Park at 4 St George's Row, Bayswater. He made many drawings of the park, including a large number of drawings of the encampments set up in the park during the Gordon Riots in 1780. Over six days in June 1780, protests took place against the limited concessions of the first Catholic Relief Act, and to quell further riots, troops were stationed in St James's Park, the gardens of Montagu House, and Hyde Park, remaining in situ for several months. Despite their military function, the encampments soon became places of fashionable parade and entertainment: Lord Harcourt described that in St James's Park as 'so extremely pretty that you would be charmed with the sight of it'. Sandby's drawings often capture the sociable elements of the camps, even wryly including drunk or amorous soldiers 'guarding' Hyde Park. He sent several drawings to be exhibited at the Royal Academy the following year, as well as making marketable aquatints of the subjects. 

An aquatint of the scene, with different figures, is no. VIII of the series of encampments engraved by James Fittler and Francis Chesham, titled 'The Laundress, with a distant view of Lord Petre's House etc. from Hyde Park'. The woman on the left, ironing, appears in a pencil and brown wash drawing in the British Museum (L.B. 137(18). Other views in the Royal Collection by Sandby of the encampments are 914678-81, 935206, 451581-86 and 451590.