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Creator:
John Thomas Serres, 1759–1825
Title:
View of Castle Cornet, Guernsey, Channel Islands, with Shipping
Date:
ca. 1800
Materials & Techniques:
Watercolor, pen and black ink, and graphite on moderately thick, slightly textured, beige wove paper
Dimensions:
Sheet: 9 3/8 x 26 1/4 inches (23.8 x 66.7 cm)
Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:

Signed in pen and black ink, lower right: "J.T. Serres"; not dated

Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1975.3.194
Classification:
Drawings & Watercolors
Collection:
Prints and Drawings
Subject Terms:
boats | castle | crowd | island | marine art | sailboat | sea
Associated Places:
Castle Cornet | Channel Islands | Guernsey | Saint Peter Port | United Kingdom
Access:
Accessible by appointment in the Study Room [Request]
Note: The Study Room is open by appointment. Please visit the Study Room page on our website for more details.
Link:
https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:12139
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This watercolor sits securely in the intersection of naval draftsmanship and the genre of marine painting. John Thomas Serres, the son of Dominic Serres, a founding member of the Royal Academy, both marine painters, may have produced studies for this work when he set out in 1799 to draw topographical profiles of the coasts of France and England under commission from the Admiralty. The ship in which he made the cruise, the Clyde, is shown to the left, along with other vessels of the squadron.

Gallery label for Spreading Canvas - Eighteenth-Century British Marine Painting (Yale Center for British Art, 2016-09-09 - 2016-12-04)
Robert Cleveley (cat. 69) [B1975.4.1476] belonged to a family of marine painters. So too did John Thomas Serres. His father Dominic Serres, from a well off Gascon family, ran away to sea and arrived in England as Prisoner of war in the 1750s. After studying with the marine painter Charles Brooking, the elder Serres achieved considerable success in that line, becoming Marine Painter to George III in 1780. Unlike Robert Cleveley, John Thomas Serres has no practical experience of ships and the sea. But he was a pupil of his father and, on his father's death in 1793, succeeded him as Marine Painter to George III. In 1800 John Thomas Serres was also appointed Marine Draughtsman to the Admiralty. One of his duties was to provide detailed elevations of the coastlines of Britain, France, and Spain. His View of Cornet, Guernsey, Channel Islands, with Shipping may be related to the production of these official coastal views. The more modest but also more charming A Hoy and a Lugger with other Shipping on a Calm Sea depicts two of the types of small vessels that plied the coastal trade around England and Holland in the eighteenth century.

Scott Wilcox

Wilcox, Forrester, O'Neil, Sloan. The Line of Beauty: British Drawings and Watercolors of the Eighteenth Century. Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 2001, pg. 90 cat. no. 72

Spreading Canvas - Eighteenth - Century British Marine Painting (Yale Center for British Art, 2016-09-09 - 2016-12-04) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]

Masters of the Sea - British Marine Watercolors (National Maritime Museum, 2005-08-25 - 2005-10-25) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

The Line of Beauty : British Drawings and Watercolors of the Eighteenth Century (Yale Center for British Art, 2001-05-19 - 2001-08-05) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]

Masters of the Sea - British Marine Watercolors (Yale Center for British Art, 1987-06-10 - 1987-08-02) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

Eleanor Hughes, Spreading Canvas : Eighteenth-Century British Marine Painting, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 2016, p. 273, 276, cat. 137, ND 1373.G74 S67 2016 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Roger Quarm, Masters of the sea : British marine watercolours, , Phaidon, Oxford, UK, 1987, pp. 75, 92, no. 60, pl. 44, ND2272 G7 Q73 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Scott Wilcox, Line of beauty : British drawings and watercolors of the eighteenth century, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 2001, p. 90, no. 72, NC228 W53 2001 (YCBA) [YCBA]


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