Description
Medium includes graphite. This watercolour, inscribed by the artist as above, shows a view of a small coastal trading brig mored and drying sails of Fort Blockhouse, which forms the western (Gosport) side of the entrance to Portsmouth harbour. Part of old Portsmouth is seen across the harbour entrance at far right. Drawing was one of the subjects taught, for serious professional reasons, to cadets at the Naval Academy at Portsmouth, which existed from the 1780s until closed in 1836. The training was good - the marine artist J.C. Schetky being a long-time teacher there,1811-36, who took his pupils out to sketch from boats - and some became very proficient life-long practitioners. Admiral Sir Edward Gennys Fanshawe was a notable example, well represented in the NMM collection. It is not yet clear if either Richard Brydges Beechey - the best professional exhibiting artist the 19th-century Navy produced - or William Smyth (1800-77, another good amateur who also rose to admiral), attended the Academy but there is also a much better watercolour by Smyth in the collection of roughly this same view, which may have been a regular set subject.Charles Henry Paget was one of the sons of Vice-Admiral the Hon. Sir Charles Paget (1778-1839). He was born on 15 July 1806 and having attended the Academy he was commissioned lieutenant in 1826, promoted to commander in 1828 and captain in 1829. In 1828, he took over from William Waldegrave in command of the 'Procris' patrolling on the coast of Ireland until 1830 and from 1831 to 1835 commanded the 'Samarang' , 28 guns, on the South American station,initially in anti-slaving work based at Rio de Janeiro. At this time, since the 'Beagle' was also there, he became acquainted with Charles Darwin. His first lieutenant in the ship was the Irish William M'Clintock (later M'Clintock-Bunbury) with William Smyth (see BHC3655) a junior lieutenant. At the end of the commission, on the coast of Peru, Smyth left the ship to make a transcontinental journey from Lima down the Amazon, with Paget's permission. Francis Leopold M'Clintock (the first lieutenant's nephew and later a notable Arctic explorer) also made his first voyage with them in 'Samarang' as a midshipman. Paget in 1836 married Elizabeth Annels (1818-1839) and in 1840 Emily Caroline M'Clintock (c. 1819-93), a younger sister of Francis Leopold, by whom he had three sons. Charles Henry Monck Paget (1842-1903) was an army officer: Alfred Fitzclarence Paget (1844-1916) was only notable for playing cricket and living on independent means: Berkeley Edward John Paget was born in September 1845 and died aged 10 of scarlet fever in 1855. The last was a posthumous son since his father had died aged 39 at Southsea on 26 May 1845. Emily Paget subsequently remarried in 1848 to Captain John Ballard Gardiner (b. 1820).
Image Licence
CC BY-NC-ND
Image Credit
© National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London
Location
Portsmouth Harbour, Portsmouth, Hampshire, England
Country
England
Medium
Watercolour
Tags
Category
Landscapes & Seascapes
