Breezy Day off Dover

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Home Office, 2 Marsham Street

Although none of the marine paintings exhibited by the artist John Wilson Carmichael during his lifetime mention Dover in the title, several coastal views of the town by the artist have passed through the sale rooms in recent years and examples of his Dover views are held in the collections of Dover District Council, Hartlepool Arts & Museum Service, the Draper’s Company in London and the South London Art Gallery.

John Wilson Carmichael was born in Newcastle upon Tyne; the son of a shipwright. He spent his early teenage years at sea, before being apprenticed to a firm of Newcastle shipbuilders. From 1825 he showed paintings at the Northumberland Institution for the Promotion of the Fine Arts and its successors. Sets of engravings, based on his works, were published in 1828-30, 1832 and 1836-38. He exhibited in London at the Royal Academy, Society of British Artists and British Institution and moved to London in 1846, settling in Bloomsbury. From May to August 1855 he worked for the ‘Illustrated London News’. Windsor and Newton commissioned two artist’s handbooks from him (published 1859, 1865). He moved to Scarborough in 1865, where he died aged 68.

Places

England, Dover Castle, Dover, Kent, White Cliffs, English Channel

Subjects

barrel, topography, seascape/coastal scene, wind, cliff, wave, ensign (ship), castle, ship

Materials & Techniques

canvas, oil, oil painting

Artist

John Wilson Carmichael (1799 - 1868)

Title

Breezy Day off Dover

Date

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

height: 72.00 cm, width: 112.00 cm

Acquisition

Purchased from Christie's, 12 March 1954

Inscription

signed lower right: J.W.Carmichael / 1861

Provenance

With Harold Hill and Sons Ltd., Newcastle upon Tyne; by whom sold through Christie's, London, on 12 March 1954 (Lot 136); from which sale purchased by Richard Walker on behalf of the Ministry of Works

GAC number

2662