Thomas Jacques Somerscales (British, 1842-1927)'The Nitrate Ship' oil on canvas99.7 x 130.8cm (39 1/4 x 51 1/2in).Footnotes:ProvenancePrivate collection, UK.ExhibitedLondon, Royal Academy, 1908, no. 914.LiteratureA.A. Hurst, Thomas Somerscales Marine Artist, his Life and Work, Brighton, 1988, col. ill. no. 84, pp. 137-138.M.E. Leek, The Art of Nautical Illustration, a Visual Tribute to the Achievements of the Class of Marine Illustrators, Minneapolis, 1991, pp. 110-111.Born in Kingston-upon-Hull in 1842, Thomas Jacques Somerscales had joined HMS Cumberland as a naval schoolmaster by the time he was 21, a career he pursued on various ships, until he contracted a fever and was discharged from the Royal Navy in Valparaiso in 1869. He soon began teaching in the Artizan School, Valparaiso, and exhibited a series of landscapes in Santiago in 1872. Indeed, for a long time all he painted was landscapes and it is for this genre that he is still best-known in Chile today. There was a fairly close-knit British community, largely Scottish, in Valparaiso, into which Somerscales had been readily accepted. When war broke out between Chile and Peru in 1879, Somerscales began painting the naval battles and there was soon a tremendous demand for marine pictures depicting Chile's recent naval history. This was a turning point in his artistic career and from that time on he became a marine painter first and foremost; indeed, it was to be his sea pictures on which his international reputation was founded. In 1890, his daughter Alice died and this tragic event led to great strains within the family. Added to this, his eldest sons were reaching university age and Somerscales was also thinking of his mother, back in Hull, who had never met his wife and children. At the end of 1892 he sold his house in Valparaiso and returned to England.When he arrived at Liverpool he had been away for nearly 30 years and he was now 50 years old. The enormous reputation which he had enjoyed in Chile had been left behind and he was a completely unknown artist in his own country. In the following year he exhibited his first picture at the Royal Academy, London, which was considered a 'tour de force' by the critics. The question on everyone's lips, however, was 'Who is Thomas Somerscales?' He showed the famous (and oft reproduced) 'Off Valparaiso' at the R.A. in 1899, no.943, which was purchased for the Chantrey Bequest for £250 and is now held in Tate Britain. He continued to visit Chile on and off until 1915, when he returned to Britain for the last time. He died in Hull in 1927.The present work was exhibited at the Royal Academy, London, in 1908 and is arguably the finest canvas of a four-masted barque that Somerscales painted. More of a ship portrait than the artist's usual seascapes, the painting is executed with a far greater sense of realism and a high attention to detail that he reserved for his most impressive works. The vessel is seen running downwind with the staysail drawing aback and the jib blanketed by the square sails which are full and drawing. The mainsail is already clewed up and her cables are shackled to their anchors, spray can be seen dripping from them on her starboard bow. In the great expanse of water, the solitary bird observed off her starboard seems a symbolic reminder of the loneliness of the ocean. With so much rust on her hull, it is likely that she is approaching port in foreign waters after a long period at sea. Captured at the moment the vessel is ascending, this is a remarkable study of the interplay of light and shade on the vessel's hull, her sails and the ocean.For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com
