Close in style, handling and form of signature to Shipping off Calais Pier, dated to c. 1818 by Patrick Noon (see exhibition catalogue Richard Parkes Bonington 'On the Pleasure of Painting', Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, and Petit Palais, November 1991 - May 1992, p. 17, repr. fig. 2), and probably traced on the drawing, apparently made on the spot, sold in these Rooms on 18 March 1980, lot 87, repr. At this time Bonington, aged sixteen, was living with his parents at Calais. A watercolour of some three years later is in a private collection, Switzerland (repr. in colour, op. cit., p. 93 no. 9); this locks the buildings in the left and shows the scene at low tide. A few years later still Bonington painted the same view in the oil painting now at Anglesey Abbey (repr. in colour, op.cit, p. 126 no. 35); in this painting the buildings on the extreme left of our drawing were originally present but have been painted out. At the time of our drawing Bonington was strangely under the influence of Louis Francia, also resident in Calais and who seems to have been instrumental in influencing the younger artist in taking up painting as his profession (see Noon, op. cit. pp. 15-16).

We are grateful to Patrick Noon for his help in preparing this catalogue entry