1919
56×73.1cm, mixed media on paper
Standard Reference: Bunt355
Owner: Arents House, Bruges (0.1078)
Provenance: Paul Turpin
Studies: Coram, photograph CPM163, held to light and traced verso.
Lit and Ill: Famous Water Colour Painters No 1, The Studio London 1928 p4 and plate 3. Dominique Marechal, Frank Brangwyn: Collection Catalogue, Bruges General Bank & Stedelijke Musea 1987 p89, 197
Ill: Brangwyn Portfolio 49 (32.5x42cm). Bookman, Christmas Special Number 1934. C Fox Smith, Here & There in England with the Painter Brangwyn, F Lewis 1945. Bunt, Sir Frank Brangwyn RA, Leigh-on-Sea 1949. Cyril G E Bunt, The Water-Colours of Sir Frank Brangwyn, RA, F Lewis Leigh-on-Sea 1958 plate 15. Francis Russell Flint, Water-colours for Beginners. Groeninge Museum, Bruges, reproduced as postcard and greetings card 2003
The huge red iron hull of a freighter, with a yellow freighter behind, create a strong diagonal from upper right to lower left, paralleled by the perspective of warehouse buildings behind. A barge is moored alongside and goods being unloaded. The cranes, derricks, smoking funnels, bustling figures, are a wonderful evocation of the dockside microcosm, which could not be assimilated by an artist with no inside knowledge – or a photograph! London Bridge is the highest point on the Thames to which large vessels can come