Whitby Harbour

Location

Country: Japan
City: Tokyo
Place: British Embassy

This view of the harbour of the fishing port of Whitby in North Yorkshire, looks towards the lighthouse on the West Pier, located in the very centre of the canvas.

St Mary’s Church and the ruins of Whitby Abbey can be seen to the right, on the East Cliff (sometimes called the Haggerlythe). The Abbey’s ruins provided part of the setting for Bram Stoker's novel Dracula, published in 1897. It is seen here in a far more complete state than it survives in today, because in 1914 German warships fired at the signal post on the end of the headland, also causing considerable damage to the Abbey behind. 

Whitby thrived as a port during the 18th century, when the town had a whaling fleet and was a base for coal-ships plying the North Sea. The navigator and map-maker James Cook (1728–1779) lived in the town for nine years and the ships he commanded on his voyages to the South Seas, the Endeavour and the Resolution, were built locally. London-born landscape painter Edmund John Niemann must have spent a considerable time in Whitby, as he produced numerous painted views of the port and its surrounding area.

Landscape painter Edmund John Niemann was born in Islington, London, to a German father. As a young man, he worked as a clerk at Lloyd's Bank. However, after 1839 he devoted himself to art, settling in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. Between 1844 and 1872 he exhibited in London, at the Royal Academy, the British Institution and the Society of British Artists, and also in Manchester and Liverpool. In 1848 he became Secretary of the Free Exhibition (later the Portland Gallery) at Hyde Park Corner. Niemann’s later years were plagued by debt and ill health, and his work suffered as a result. He died at about the age of 63 at his home on Brixton Hill, London. His son, Edward H. Niemann, was also an artist and closely imitated his father's style.

Places

England, Whitby, Yorkshire, North Yorkshire, North Sea, Whitby Harbour

Subjects

seascape/coastal scene, hill, shore, cliff, man, bridge (urban), harbour, abbey, church, ruin, ship

Materials & Techniques

canvas, oil, oil painting

Artist

Edmund John Niemann (1813 - 1876)

Title

Whitby Harbour

Date

1859

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

height: 64.50 cm, width: 115.00 cm

Acquisition

Transferred from the Ministry of Defence, 1970

Inscription

br: Whitby Niemann / 59

Provenance

With Piccadilly Gallery, London; from whom purchased by the Ministry of Works on behalf of the Ministry of Defence in June 1959; transferred to the Government Picture Collection in c1970

GAC number

15041