Mill bay, Cornwall

Mill Bay, or Nanjizal Bay, as it is better known today, lies about a mile north of the hamlet of Porthgwarra, where Brett arrived with his family on Aug 24 1880. This is his first known sketch from that summer. The silhouetted headland in the distance is Carn Boel, and beyond it, just over a mile further to the north, is the Land's End.

Brett later recorded "the sketching this autumn has been tolerably fruitful. I have been using 14 x 7 inch canvases chiefly, with Roberson's medium dissolved in twice its volume of turpentine, and in all cases painting into wet white simply, without any yellow to it."

We are grateful to Charles Brett for preparing this catalogue entry.