The 'Gazelle' entering the Mersey

In 1837, the barque Gazelle, of 282 tons’ capacity, was built at Bideford for Ferris & Co. of Bristol for trade between Liverpool and Bahia, Brazil. Within same year, Walters produced the present work, which depicts the vessel negotiating the Rock Channel. Two Liverpool landmarks, Perch Rock Fort and lighthouse, feature prominently in the composition to the right of the ship. St. Mary’s Church in the town of Bootle is also visible along the shoreline between two pillars just below the bowspirit. The towers of this church originally served as a guide for navigating through the Rock Channel due to their unique silhouette. Walters seems to have favored this viewpoint of the port city, as he reproduced this exact landmark configuration in his paintings of the brig Mary Jones and the US ship Champlain (A. S. Davidson, Samuel Walters, Marine Artist – Fifty Years of Sea, Sail, & Stream, Coventry, 1993, pp. 114-115, 120-121). By 1841, the Gazelle went missing, as indicated by her last recorded entry in Lloyd’s Register.