Hamilton, Bermuda

For Bermudan watercolours and a lithograph of the same subject by Driver see Sotheby's, 4 Nov. 1987 (the lithograph lot 299). 'Son of a Cambridge merchant, Driver arrived in Bermuda as an assistant to the Agent of Victualling His Majesty's Ships. This was at the height of the war of 1812 [when Bermuda, Britain's only possession between Canada and the West Indies, served as a base for the British forces' assault on Washington], and Driver helped to provision large numbers of warships. He remained in Bermuda after the war, working as an auctioneer and commission merchant, and benefited from the brief prosperity that Bermuda enjoyed as an entrpôt for West Indian produce. The economy collapsed in 1821, however, and Driver never recovered financially. He advertised himself as a painter of portraits in oil and miniature in the 1820s and seems to have augmented his income with landscape commissions. Driver returned to England in 1836...' (New York, The Pierpoint Morgan Library, and Hamilton, Bermuda National Gallery, Through British Eyes: Images of Bermuda 1815-1860 (exhibition catalogue), New York, 1996, p.11).