English School, mid-19th century

A sketchbook of views taken in Brazil, Canada and the West Indies

Details

English School, mid-19th century
A sketchbook of views taken in Brazil, Canada and the West Indies
the views including: 'Santos Brazil'; Botofogo Bay, Rio de Janeiro; 'The Organ Mountains Rio Janeiro'; 'Hood's Nose Rio Janeiro'; 'HMS Atholl'; The Sugar Loaf; 'Bahia'; 'St Thomas' [West Indies]; and 'Fishing schooner Prince Edw[ard] Isld'
some inscribed, one dated 'Aug 16 1859'
pencil, pen and ink and watercolour on paper
the album 6¾ x 10½in. (17.1 x 26cm.)
in an oblong 4° half calf mottled green sketchbook album with marbled endpapers, retailer's label on front pastedown 'RUA DO OUVIDOR, 36, AO LIVRO ENCARNADO. Loja de papel de GEORGES LEUZINGER, successor de Bouvier. RIO DE JANEIRO'

Provenance

The Egerton family, and thence by descent to the previous owner.

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Lot Essay

The album appears to follow the movements of the anti-slaver HMS Atholl (a sketch of the 18-gun sloop of war features on the tenth page of the album) as it enforced the British embargo of the trans-Atlantic slave trade between West Africa and Brazil in the 1820s. The ship is recorded variously at Halifax (NS) in 1821-24, at St Thomas in 1825, Corunna in 1829, the Bight of Benin and Fernando Po (West Africa) in the early 1830s, the Cape and Mauritius in the later 1830s. She became primarily a troop ship sailing between English, Irish and Mediterranean ports serving Canada and the West Indies in the 1840s.

An attribution to Francis Leveson Gower, the Earl of Ellesmere (1800-1857) has been suggested (by the provenance), although Gower died two years before the only dated (1859) sketch in the album.

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