Robert Salmon

Private Collection, United Kingdom

Lined. Under UV: Inpainting to address frame abrasion along all edges. Finely applied inpainting to address craquelure visible in the sky and the sails.
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In the present work, Robert Salmon captures, with his characteristic eye for detail and accuracy, an elegant merchantman, outbound for the Atlantic or the Mediterranean.   Long in demand by ship-owners for his compositions, the artist lived from 1811 in Greenock, outside of the growing industrialized city of Glasgow, and opposite the “Tail of the Bank.” In the early nineteenth century, a large sandbank prevented the easy sailing of ships up the Clyde and the “Tail of the Bank” formed a natural anchorage where ships could wait for further assistance (A.S. Davidson, Marine Art and the Clyde, Upton, 2001, p. 34).  With this composition, Salmon depicts a single ship in three separate views, and with the port broadside view (center foreground), shown hove-to to allow a pilot aboard.  At her foremast is a house-flag with the letter “B,” and at the mainmast a long pennant in naval style, suggesting she has been given the letters of a marque as a privateer and may capture enemy ships.  Further formidable clues are the eighteen guns she carries and her camouflaging black and white trim which at a distance would suggest she is a Naval frigate.  Around 1814, the year Salmon completed the present work, such vessels were critical in Britain’s efforts against Napoleon’s naval advances and its war with America.  In their patriotic duty, merchant captains could earn great sums as they picked off the enemy’s commercial vessels as the spoils were divided between them and the British government.  

We would like to thank Sam Davidson for contributing to this catalogue entry.