THE PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN 
Benjamin Williams Leader, R.A. (1831-1923)

An Old Southern Port (Littlehampton)

細節
Benjamin Williams Leader, R.A. (1831-1923)
An Old Southern Port (Littlehampton)
signed and dated 'B.W. Leader 1901' (lower left) and signed and inscribed 'An Old Southern Port B.W. Leader' (on the stretcher)
oil on canvas
24 x 40 in. (60.9 x 101.6 cm.)
來源
Bought from the artist by Arthur Tooth, July 1901, for £150.

拍品專文

The painting is a version of a larger work exhibited at the Royal Academy, in 1901, no.445, which was also purchased from the artist by Tooth.

The subject is Littlehampton harbour in its sunset years. Before its decline at the end of the 19th century, Littlehampton was a thriving sea-faring port at the mouth of the Arun River, a destination for the large sailing ships carrying wood and coal mainly from the Baltic, Sweden, Norway, and Russia.

In the foreground, the paddle harbour tug 'Jumna', can be seen tied to the piles, with two full rigged sailing ships beyond.

The picturesque harbour had been a subject for artists such as G. Poulson and John Constable in the first half of the 19th century. The London-based landscape and genre painter George Pike (fl. 1880-1901) chose the same view as Leader about the same time, and the harbour was also painted by one of the greatest British marine painters of this century, Leslie Arthur Wilcox (1908-1982).