The Cape of Good Hope - YCBA Collections Search

Print made by Gerard van der Gucht, 1696–1776, British, The Cape of Good Hope, 1736

Creator:

Print made by Gerard van der Gucht, 1696–1776
after Samuel Scott, 1701/2–1772
and George Lambert, 1700–1765
Commissioned by East India Company, 1600–1874

Title:

The Cape of Good Hope

Date:

1736

Materials & Techniques:

Line engraving with hand coloring in watercolor on medium, slightly textured, cream laid paper

Dimensions:

Sheet: 19 5/16 × 26 inches (49 × 66 cm), Plate: 17 11/16 × 23 1/2 inches (45 × 59.7 cm), Image: 15 13/16 × 22 1/2 inches (40.1 × 57.1 cm)

Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:

Watermark

Lettered below image, lower left: "Painted & Delineated by Lambert | & | Scott"; below: "London, Printed for Carington Bowles in St,, Pauls Church Yard, Robt. Sayer in Fleet Street, & John Bowles in Cornhil.; center: "The Cape of Good Hope."; lower right: "Engrav'd by G. Vander Gucht."; below: "Publifh'd purfuant to an Act of Parliament."

Credit Line:

Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection

Copyright Status:

Public Domain

Accession Number:

B1978.43.271

Classification:

Prints

Collection:

Prints and Drawings

Subject Terms:

Associated Places:

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:41908

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This image seems to have been based on a seventeenth-century painting of Table Bay, with the dominant image of Table Mountain in the background, the walled fortification and warehouses on the shore, and Dutch ships in the bay. The salute fired by the British ship in the foreground, signaling its arrival in port, focuses attention on the crucial role played by the settlement in maintaining the company’s commercial endeavors in Asia. The area around Cape Town was first settled by the Dutch East India Company in 1652, when it established a base there to provide its vessels with fresh provisions and water. By the eighteenth century, ships of all nations and companies were taking advantage of Cape Town’s harbor and onshore facilities.

Gallery label for Spreading Canvas - Eighteenth-Century British Marine Painting (Yale Center for British Art, 2016-09-09 - 2016-12-04)

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]

Hilda F. Finberg, Samuel Scott, Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, V. 81, London, 1942, N1 B87 + OVERSIZE (YCBA) Also available online at JSTOR [YCBA]

Eleanor Hughes, Spreading Canvas : Eighteenth-Century British Marine Painting, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 2016, pp. 204-05, cat. 64, no. 64, ND 1373.G74 S67 2016 (YCBA) [YCBA]

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