The Cabin Boy

Ralph Hedley's pre-eminent position amongst Newcastle artists at the end of the 19th Century was in part due to the wide popularity of the chromolithographs made from his paintings of working-class life in the north-east. The present work, one of Hedley's rare Breton subjects, is a characteristically lively record of a cabin-boy and depicts the young sailor wearing what would appear to be Lancashire rather than Dutch clogs.