Shipping off Exmouth

Location

Country: Luxembourg
City: Luxembourg
Place: British Embassy

This marine painting is typical of the work of Thomas Luny, who painted numerous views of shipping off the south coast of England. The scene shows several vessels manoeuvring through choppy water, on a breezy day. At the centre of the work a church tower breaks the skyline.

Although one of Luny’s earliest views of shipping near Exmouth was painted in 1795, this work was made more than ten years later, shortly before Luny moved to Teignmouth, in Devon, just along the coast from Exmouth. The artist went on to paint numerous views in the area, around the coastal towns of Teignmouth, Dawlish, Exmouth and Topsham.

Thomas Luny, marine painter, apparently studied with the artist Francis Holman in London. He exhibited mostly at the Royal Academy, where he showed his work every year from 1780 to 1793. He showed nothing after 1793 until 1802, when he exhibited 'Battle of the Nile', and then nothing until the year of his death, when he exhibited three pictures. It is possible that in 1793 he joined the Royal Navy to fight in the French Revolutionary Wars. Luny retired to Teignmouth in Devon, in about 1810, where he lived and worked for the rest of his life. In spite of being crippled by arthritis in both his hands and his legs for over 30 years he continued to paint assiduously and his total life's work is thought to have produced some 3000 pictures.

Places

England, Exmouth, Devon, English Channel

Subjects

rowing boat, topography, seascape/coastal scene, wave, ship

Materials & Techniques

canvas, oil, oil painting

Artist

Thomas Luny (1759 - 1837)

Title

Shipping off Exmouth

Date

1806

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

height: 56.50 cm, width: 86.50 cm

Acquisition

Purchased from Parker Gallery, December 1960

Inscription

sdbl

Provenance

With Parker Gallery, London; from which purchased in December 1960

GAC number

5416