Lot Essay
This painting is amongst Grimshaw's finest views of Scarborough, painted after he had settled in the 'Castle by the Sea', named after one of Longfellow's poems, in the mid 1870s. Looking back across the bay to the town it depicts the spa at the height of its prosperity with Cuthbert Broderick's French inspired Grand Hotel towering over the suspension bridge to the left. As so often with Grimshaw's work, it is a painting of contrast both in subject and in the depiction of light. The old life of the fishing port is juxtaposed with the new life of the town as gas lamps twinkle through the moonlight.