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C W Cobbett's Wey DFAS is grateful for the support offered by The Farnham Herald. Please click on their logo below to visit their website. |
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Cobbett’s Wey members recently went on a visit to the East End of London (see Latest News Page) and by happy coincidence, the lecture in November began with a slide of Greenwich. James Taylor was a curator at the National Maritime Museum there. His love, enthusiasm and knowledge of his subject was immediately apparent as he began to talk about ‘Masters of the Sea: Highlights of Maritime Art’. He spoke first of the Queen’s House built in 1665 and which now houses the largest collection of marine pictures in the world. Here were based a group of Dutch artists led by Willem van de Velde and his son. The father was paid £100 p.a. to draw battles at sea and has been dubbed ‘the first official war artist’. James Taylor showed an amazingly detailed drawing of a battle in the midst of which sat the artist in a small boat making sketches and notes. The lecturer swept through the centuries mentioning the importance of corporate commissions such as Samuel Scott’s to paint the ships and ports used by the British East India Company. The owner of the Foundlings’ Hospital wanted sea pictures to inspire the boys to join the Navy. James Taylor revealed an intrigue he had recently uncovered. In the eighteenth century The Royal Society of Arts gave prizes to improve the standard of maritime art. This prize was suddenly withdrawn. Mr. Taylor has unearthed documents showing that a committee member was rigging the competition. He has also solved another puzzle. In a painting of naval pensioners at the Hospital in Greenwich, several of the veterans are looking very intently at a rather uninteresting group of old men. X-rays have revealed that originally it was two women in very low-cut dresses who attracted the men’s gaze! Great heroes of the sea were not ignored in James Taylor’s lecture. Portraits of Cook and Nelson give insight into their characters. On his hat, Nelson sports a very fine jewel which had a clockwork centrepiece enabling it to rotate. Sadly, Mr. Taylor told the audience, this was stolen in the 1950s and broken up. In another interesting aside, the lecturer showed a photograph of Brunel in which he is smoking a cigar. The organisers of a recent exhibition insisted that this was airbrushed out. Such is political correctness. James Taylor concluded his most enjoyable lecture by mentioning John Stobart, a Farnham man. He persuaded many wealthy captains of industry in America that they needed images of early ports and he made a good living producing prints of, for example, ships sailing into Boston harbour in the 1844s. CWDFAS is a member of NADFAS |
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CWDFAS is a member of NADFAS |
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