At the Capstan on a Spanish Brig

This picture was painted the same year as All Hands to the Pumps!, which was shown at the Royal Academy and bought by the Chantrey Bequest. It is now in Tate Britain. The present picture is listed in Tuke’s register of paintings under Spanish boy in the rigging, R124, which reports that it was painted on board the brig Chile. The subject’s costume, a blue tunic worn over a frill edged shirt, with a red sash at the waist and knee length leather boots, are distinctively Spanish. The model sat to Tuke in other pictures, notably Steering the Punt, a watercolour of 1909.

The picture’s Australian provenance is interesting. Tuke was friends with William Ayerst Ingram, a painter who lived in Falmouth, and who with Thomas Cooper Cotch founded the Anglo Australian Art Society in 1888. This promoted the work of English painters in Australia. It may have been bought by one of Ingram’s friends, a Mr Davidson, who lived there.

We are grateful to Catherine Wallace, www.cathwallace.co.uk for her help in preparing this catalogue entry.