Of royal academicians, painters, engravers and sailors.
In the next two posts I will talk about artworks related to the sea which I found at Portobello Road market and in London charities. Because of their quality, some of these artworks are of great interest.
The first of these artworks is entitled The Mackerel Fleet, and is an aquatint and drypoint from a painting by William Lionel Wyllie, a Royal Academician, painter, etcher and sailor. I acquired this piece at British Red Cross, 152 Shepherds Bush Rd, Hammersmith, on December 2, 2019. The aquatint is signed on the plate, and the dimensions of the etching are 255 mm wide and 163 mm high. The original painting that inspired this etching was probably The Rosy Morn: The Mackerel Fleet putting to Sea, an oil on canvas by the same W. L. Wyllie made around 1909 (R.A. Exhibition, “The Art Journal 1909”. Hand-Printed Plates. List of Artists whose work is reproduced: Wyllie, W. L., R.A. 268). The etching contains some printed inscriptions Upper right: “Copyrighted 1911 by Raphael Tuck & Sons Ltd. London, Paris, Berlin, New York and Montreal, Publishers to their Majesties the King & Queen. Printed in England”; Lower right: “From the Original Painting by W. L. Wyllie R. A.”; Lower centre: “The Mackerel Fleet”. The artwork kept the original frame, and an original framer's label was attached on reverse, which reads: “Barton & Long Limited. Tel. No. 2198. Picture frame makers and Gilders. Fine Art Trade Guild. Print sellers and artists’ colourmen. Picture restoration a speciality. 84 Whiteladies Road, Redland, Date… Bristol. No…”.
There exists an old photograph of the Mackerel Fleet circa 1890, while taking shelter in protected Boothbay Harbor during some rough weather.
The other etching that accompanied this one was Oyster Dredgers (1911), also an aquatint and drypoint from a painting by William Lionel Wyllie made in 1909. Its dimensions are the same as those of the previous artwork. Again, a series of inscriptions appear in the engraving: Upper right: “Copyrighted 1911 by Raphael Tuck & Sons Ltd. London, Paris, Berlin, New York and Montreal, Publishers to their Majesties the King & Queen. Printed in England”; Lower right: “From the Original Painting by W. L. Wyllie R. A.”. And on the reverse side of the frame the same framer's label appeared. W L Wyllie's signature also appears on the imprint, as does the date of the painting, 1909.
Oyster Dredgers (1911). Etching, drypoint and aquatint by William Lionel Wyllie.
In both etchings Wyllie has combined the aquatint technique and the dry point, achieving a quite novel effect. Each color required a different copper plate, and each tint was added with a separate pass from the press. Very expensive by today's standards, but the quality standard at the turn of the century for these quality color etchings. These small-scale reproductions of artworks helped to spread appreciation of art among the masses. Both antique aquatints form a set of atmospheric images of fishing boats which are very representative of the artistic work by William L. Wyllie. He was a well known marine painter and printmaker in early 20th century London. He studied at the Heatherley School of Fine Art, then at the age of 15 began his studies at the Royal Academy. At the age of 18, Wyllie won the Turner Gold Medal for his painting "Dawn After A Storm". He went on to have a long artistic career, specializing in paintings and etchings of the sea and the city of London. Here he uses remarkably delicate lines and subtle tones. An original etching have a gradation and subtlety of tone which cannot be achieved with modern methods of reproduction.
Both etchings could be labeled as maritime art. It refers to figurative art that portrays or is inspired primarily by the sea. Among the subjects depicted are warships, the sea, coastlines, scenes of navigation on deep waters, naval vessels, yachts, schooners, sailboats, tugboats, historical naval battles, whalers and lighthouses. There is no one medium or style characteristic of maritime art. The artists worked in a variety of media, including watercolor, oil, acrylics, and pastel. Nor is there a single style, and compositions range from luminous pieces, as in the works of Fitz Hugh Lane and Robert Salmon, to more dramatic and tumultuous pieces such as those by James Buttersworth or Joseph Mallord William Turner. Maritime art was particularly popular in seaports and coastal towns between the 17th and 19th centuries, and is still a popular genre today. In the UK, the Royal Society of Marine Artists currently holds an annual competition and displays selected artworks in a major exhibition at the Mall Galleries.
William Lionel Wyllie RA (1851-1931) was the leading British marine artist of his time. He spent much of his time living on a boat in the lower Thames and painting directly from nature. His work at the Royal collection, the Tate, the Royal Academy, the Imperial War Museum, the National Maritime Museum, the Royal Air Force Museum, the Royal Naval Museum and in many provincial galleries provides an idea of his importance as an artist. Wyllie was an artist who successfully practiced oil and watercolor painting, as well as being a prominent engraver. He practiced burin engraving, drypoint, etching and, as in these artworks, aquatint.
Wyllie was born in Albany Street, London, on July 5, 1851. As a child he spent his summers in Wimereux, a coastal town near Boulogne in northern France. There, Wyllie made drawings and paintings of the French coast and the local fishermen. Between 1866 and 1869 Wyllie studied at the Art Schools of the Royal Academy. He was elected to the Society of British Artists in 1875, and in 1883 produced etchings for Robert Dunthorne the owner of London’s Rembrandt Gallery. In 1883 Wyllie had five solo shows at the Fine Art Society. In 1884 he held an exhibition entitled The Tidal Thames at the Fine Art Society in London. Wyllie developed a good relationship with the Royal Navy, and he was allowed access to restricted areas within Portsmouth Dockyard. In 1889 he was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy. In 1895 he bought a Thames barge and painted and etched scenes on the River Thames. In 1907 he was elected a Royal Academician. Wyllie died in April 1931.
Regarding etchings, Wyllie was always keenly involved in the entire printing process, being very meticulous in destroying the copper plates after each modest print run was completed making sure that his signed etchings remained scarce and collectible. He was a keen sailor, and studied the sea with enthusiasm. In his etchings Wyllie was able to depict atmospheric scenes with vessels, Thames barges, warships, harbours and waterways. Wyllie's marine pictures give a wonderful feeling of the busy working life of the Thames in its heyday, when London was the biggest and richest port in the world. He exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy and the Royal Institute throughout his life. His etchings show his ability to brilliantly capture the flickering of light on moving water. He worked the copper plates himself and used the techniques of the master engraver, creating very biting blacks, deploying dry point to add spontaneity and aquatint to give tone.
Throughout his life William Lionel Wyllie exhibited at the Royal Academy, the Royal Society of British Artists, the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers, the Royal Hibernian Academy, the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours, the Royal Institute of Oil Painters, the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Water-colours, the Abbey Gallery, the Agnew & Sons Gallery, the Royal Society of Artists, the Fine Art Society, the Grosvenor Gallery, the Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts, the Walker Art Gallery, the Leicester Gallery, the Manchester City Art Gallery, the New English Art Club, and the Arthur Tooth & Son Gallery.
Wyllie was already a renowned etcher when both aquatints were made, and undoubtedly the artist had to take part during the printing process. But who was Raphael Tuck, the publisher of both engravings? It was a publishing business established in London, UK, and operating between 1866 and 1959.
In October 1866 Raphael Tuck, an artistic perfectionist, and his wife and businesswoman Ernestine Lissner, opened a shop in Union Street, London, later Raphael Tuck & Sons Ltd. Three of the couple's four children became involved in the company established by Raphael and Ernestine. The business began with the sale of pictures and frames. At their shop they displayed reproductions of famous and popular art along with those Victorian greeting cards that were available at the time. Tuck had made contact with lithographers in his native country, Prussia, to supply him with work from their presses suitable for British and American sale. Within a few months Raphael had established himself as a distributor of graphic art printing which included chromos, oleographs and black and white lithographs.
Raphael was not an artist, but before settling in England he had received training in graphic arts. In his new graphic arts business in London he was so successful that, according to the London Times, he "opened up a new field of labor for artists, lithographers, engravers, printers, ink and paste board makers, and several other trade classes". The president of the Royal Academy expressed his opinion concerning Tuck's influence on art: "Mr. Tuck's graphic productions were likely more effective than all of the art galleries in the world." Tuck postcards decorated drawing rooms in elegant mansions as well as country cottages. This art connoisseur observed that the world's art galleries could only reach a few people while Mr. Tuck's postcards went to millions of individuals at every level of society. Although the Tuck firm did some black and white printing in their London offices, the majority of color work (printed or chromographed) was contracted for in Bavaria, Germany or Saxony, inscribed on the majority of the early Tuck postcards.
The greatest period of expansion of the Tuck firm came under direction of his son Adolph who had joined his father in 1870. Adolph became managing director, which included control of the art department. Around 1880 the company moved to Coleman Street with a branch in Chiswell Street. Tuck established offices in Paris (1882), Berlin, Montreal and New York (1885). In 1883, Queen Victoria granted the firm the Royal Warrant of Appointment. Tuck cards thereafter bore the message, "Art Publishers to Her Majesty the Queen". Future sovereigns continued the warrant of appointment.
Ernestine died in 1895. In 1899 Tuck opened his new and splendid building on the corner of Moorfield and Tener Street, an impressive five-story Victorian structure. In addition to housing the administrative offices, the new building provided adequate space for the different departments of the business, including the Print and Engraving, Chromo, Oleograph, and Art Study Departments, although most of the printing continued to be contracted in Germany until World War I cut off business relations between the two countries. Raphael Tuck died on March 16, 1900. Adolph and his brothers continued to expand the business after Raphael's death.
Produced with the finest colour methods of the time, and directly from the original paintings, our etchings are interesting not only because Wyllie was involved in the process of engraving and printing, probably destroying the copper plates after a modest print run, but also because, at the beginning of World War II, on the night of December 29, 1940, the Nazis dropped tons of bombs over London, and one of them reached Raphael House, reducing to ashes the records of seventy-four years and more than 40,000 original pictures and photographs by the best artists. The business continued to prosper after World War II and eventually merged with two other companies to become the British Printing Corporation (renamed British Printing & Communications Corporation in 1982 and Maxwell Communications Corporation in 1987).
References:
-Sally S. Carver, The American Postcard Guide to Tuck (Brookline, Mass.: Carves Cards, 1976).
-Anthony Byatt, Picture Postcards and their Publishers (Malvern: Golden Age Postcard Books, 1978), 287–301.
A few months later, on January 3, 2020, I found in Portobello Road market a small original watercolor by another British artist, specialised in boat scenes in the Thames estuary. His name, Desmond Harradine (1927-1999), and the title of the artwork, "Sail boats off the coast" (c. 1960). The watercolor was signed at the bottom right with the artist's characteristic signature, "Des Harradine.
Sail boats off the coast” (c. 1960), by marine and coastal painter Desmond Harradine.
The watercolor, of reduced dimensions (Image 163 x 108 mm; paper 178 x 127 mm), was in very good condition, and kept its original dark wooden frame. Before reaching Portobello Road the artwork had been offered at auction by Bourne End Auction Rooms, Lot 206 (Desmond Harradine, sail boats off the coast, watercolour, signed 4 2/8" x 6" mounted in a glazed frame and signed indistinctly).
I found some information about Desmond Harradine on the back of the painting, already outdated, which said: 'Des Harradine was born in 1927 at Woodford in Essex. Married, he now resides in Hornchurch. He went to art school for a short period but is mostly self-taught. Started his career as a graphic designer but now paints full time. Specialises in pastels and watercolours. He also likes to paint marine, towns, landscapes and vintage transport. He has had several successful one man exhibitions and sold his paintings worldwide.'
Indeed, clients from all over the world were able to purchase Harradine's artwork at his exhibitions in London and at several galleries in Essex. In addition to ships, the artist painted landscapes, portraits and numerous steam train scenes, one of his passions. In fact, Harradine was a member of the Guild of Railway Artists, and two of his oil paintings are on display at the East Anglian Railway Museum in Colchester, which is devoted to the preservation of the region's railway heritage.
This particular watercolour depicts some river sailing barges in the Thames Estuary, a subject that this artist liked to paint. Such commercial sailing boats were in the past common on the River Thames and in the port of London. They carried goods between the London docks and other port cities. They used the incoming tide to navigate upstream, as well as the ebbing tide for the opposite journey. Flat-bottomed barges with a shallow draught, perfectly adapted to the Thames estuary, with shallow water and narrow tributary rivers. Despite their size, these barges could be operated by a crew of only two men. During the Second World War some of these vessels were requisitioned and towed, in May 1940, to assist in the evacuation of Dunkirk. After this episode, the barges that survived resumed their normal trade.
Although small in format, this watercolor is interesting and valuable. Harradine's watercolor work has been offered at auction in many auction houses: DGS Auctions (29 Nov 2014, lot 133), John Nicholson Auctioneers (Apr 9 2014, Lot 1060), Clarke and Simpson Auctions (26 Mar 2018, Lot 16), High Road Auctions (1 Jul 2014, lot 406), Stacey's Auctioneers and Valuers (Lot 1487), Burstow & Hewett (26 Aug 2015, lot 56), Henry Adams Auctioneers (7th July 2016, Lot 694), Golding Young (6th Feb 2013, Lot 398) and Bourne End Auction Rooms (15th May 2019, Lot 206).
Three years later, in the rainy summer of 2023, I found a watercolour depicting a barge race, this time on the River Orwell, in Ipswich, a theme frequently addressed by British artist Edward Seago. The watercolour was signed at the lower right, "Eve Blake".
I acquired this watercolour from the British Red Cross shop in Hammersmith. On the back of the frame was a label by the artist, probably from the exhibition where the artwork was first acquired: "Title: Barges on the River Orwell, by Eve Blake". It also contained the artist's address in Ipswich, her phone number, and the price of the piece. On the reverse was an inscription by the artist herself: "Barge Race, 1980, by Eve Blake".
I still found some more marine paintings at the Portobello Road market, which I will write about in my next post. The one I show below was also acquired in Portobello Road, but it was a gift from a friend. It portrays two 18thC galleons battling at sea, an original oil on canvas by J. Harvey (20th century), of whom little is known.
Two 18thC galleons battling at sea, oil on canvas by J. Harvey.
The oil painting depicts two combat schooners with mast battling by cannons in turbulent waters. A column of smoke rises behind them as the boats fire their artillery. J. Harvey was a fairly prolific painter of naval battle scenes, and his signature, 'J Harvey', appears on many similar nautical paintings. Our picture is signed ‘J Harvey’ in white on the lower right. Harvey's artwork has been offered at auction multiple times. The canvas size is 20 x 16 in (506 x 420 mm), and the painting is framed in a gilt swept framework.
The nib and India ink drawing I show below was acquired at the Tetuán flea market in Madrid on 5 November 2023.
It was drawn on a sheet of sketch pad. The picture is signed by F. Poblet, but has no title. It depicts two barges and a dinghy moored to a jetty. Its size is about 34 x 24 cm (the drawing, 26 x 20 cm).
In the next post I will show those other marine art acquisitions I found later, when the market stalls in Portobello Road started to reopen after the first lockdown. Unfortunately, Portobello Rd is again a ghost market these days, due to the restrictions imposed by a second wave of the pandemic.
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