Studies of Coastal Boats, c. 1830
Watercolor on paper, 10 1/2 x 13 1/2 inches, within UV glazed frame.
This study of working boats is from an early (c. 1830) sketchbook and is a fine example of Edward Duncan's technique of composition using both pencil and color. Duncan (1803-1882) was a leading British marine painter and watercolorist who began his career as a copyist and engraver in the London studio of Robert Havell, where he learned aquatint engraving. He was not a seaman turned painter, nor did his early career involve painting ships and the sea. Duncan painted watercolor landscapes rather in the manner of William Havell, Robert’s brother. It was only in 1826 that a project of engraving sea pieces after William John Huggins sparked his own interest in marine subjects. It was not, however, Huggin’s stiff and old-fashioned ship portraits that Duncan emulated, but Clarkson Stanfield’s highly wrought and intensely dramatic sea-pieces (Stanfield was conceded to be the best marine painter of his day).
Duncan, unlike Stanfield, had little firsthand knowledge of ships and the sea, and instead specialized in coastal scenes and coastal craft, which he sketched from life during his travels in Britain and on the Continent. Although he also worked in oil, Duncan excelled in watercolor in which he “could achieve a freshness and immediacy that transcend[ed] formula and imitation” with a “subtlety and crispness in the handling.” This was especially true of works executed during the 1830s, of which these fine watercolor drawings are examples.
Item #19Price: $750.00