CHARLES NAPIER HEMY (BRITISH, 1841-1917)

Ironclads
signed with initials and dated 'C.N.H. 1904' (lower left)
watercolour and gouache
45 x 67cm

Provenance
Sale, Bonhams, London, 24th March 2010, lot 171;
Paul Mayhew Fine Art, 2010, from whom acquired by the present owner

Exhibited
London, Royal Academy 1906, no 871

Literature
Royal Academy and New Gallery Pictures and Sculpture for 1906, pp.85 and XXIV;
Royal Academy Pictures 1906, p.34

Estimate:	£1,200 - £1,800
Hammer price:	£1,200

Bidding ended. Lot has been sold.

Footnote
Described in the Royal Academy Pictures of the Year as having ‘…the purposefulness without the pomp of war in the quiet leviathon…’ Ironclads depicts an Edgar-class battleship in the foreground with a Canopus-class battleship astern. The Edgar-class of battleship consisted of nine vessels built under The Naval defence Act of 1889 and designed as slightly smaller, and thus more economical, versions of the preceding Blake-class. The Canopus-class consisted of six ships, designed by William White in the late 1890s, to be deployed on the China Station.

Hemy's juxtaposition of the two battleships with the small sailing boat is almost certainly a comment on the inexorable march of industrialisation.

Condition Report
The sheet is sound, surface in good clean condition with strong colour; good original condition overall; framed and under glass, unexamined out of frame.

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