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Creator:
John Thomas Serres, 1759–1825, British
Title:
A Hoy and a Lugger with other Shipping on a Calm Sea
Date:
undated
Medium:
Watercolor with pen and black ink on medium, slightly textured, cream wove paper
Dimensions:
Sheet: 13 1/8 x 18 5/8 inches (33.3 x 47.3 cm)
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1986.29.549
Classification:
Drawings & Watercolors
Collection:
Prints and Drawings
Access:
Accessible by request in the Study Room [Request]
Note: As a COVID-19 precaution, the Study Room is closed until further notice.
Curatorial Comment:
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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,2001-05
Exhibition History:
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Masters of the Sea - British Marine Watercolors (Yale Center for British Art, 1987-06-10 - 1987-08-02)

Masters of the Sea - British Marine Watercolors (National Maritime Museum, 2005-08-25 - 2005-10-25)

The Line of Beauty : British Drawings and Watercolors of the Eighteenth Century (Yale Center for British Art, 2001-05-19 - 2001-08-05)

Behold the Sea (Yale Center for British Art, 2003-06-14 - 2003-09-07)

Great British Watercolors from the Paul Mellon Collection at the Yale Center for British Art (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 2007-07-11 - 2007-09-30)

Great British Watercolors from the Paul Mellon Collection at the Yale Center for British Art (Yale Center for British Art, 2008-06-09 - 2008-08-17)

Great British Watercolors from the Paul Mellon Collection at the Yale Center for British Art (The State Hermitage Museum, 2007-10-23 - 2008-01-13)

Link:
https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:2190
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