A Frigate Awaiting a Pilot - YCBA Collections Search

William Anderson, 1757–1837, British, A Frigate Awaiting a Pilot, 1797

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Creator:: William Anderson, 1757–1837
Title:: A Frigate Awaiting a Pilot
Date:: 1797
Materials & Techniques:: Watercolor and pen and brown ink on medium, slightly textured, cream wove paper
Dimensions:: Sheet: 7 7/8 x 11 3/4 inches (20 x 29.8 cm)
Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:: Signed and dated in pen and brown ink, lower right: "W Anderson 1797"
Credit Line:: Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:: Public Domain
Accession Number:: B1975.3.1090
Classification:: Drawings & Watercolors
Collection:: Prints and Drawings
Subject Terms:: boats | cliffs | coast | frigate | frigates | marine (soldier) | marine art | pilot | ships
Associated Places:: Dover | England | Kent | The Downs | United Kingdom
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:9182
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IIIF Manifest:: JSON

The setting of this watercolor can be identified as the area known as the Downs, off the southeast coast of England in the county of Kent. The Downs had long been used as a safe anchorage for shipping, sheltered to the north and west by the coast, and to the east by the ten-mile-long sandbanks known as the Goodwin Sands. These and other constantly shifting shoals in the area posed a hazard to vessels and necessitated the guidance of knowledgeable pilots to navigate the passage between safe anchorage and open water. Here a frigate awaits a pilot; in Charles Brooking’s related painting Shipping in the English Channel (ca. 1755), a ship has just dropped the pilot who guided it out of the anchorage and is setting off to open sea.

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

Marine drawing in eighteenth-century Britain was largely a specialized production aimed at an expert audience. The marine draftsman was required to provide a documentary record of ships, naval engagements, harbors, and coastlines for a knowledgeable public of active and retired seamen. As John Thomas Serres (cats. 72-3 [B1975.3.194] [B1986.29.549]) observed in his Liber Nauticus and Instructor in the Art of Marine Drawing (1805), proficiency in the art demanded both a working knowledge both of the construction of ships, what Serres termed "naval architecture," and of seamanship. Consequently, it was common for the marine draftsman or painter to have turned to art after an actual involvement in the building or sailing of ships.

Like his father and his twin brother, Robert Cleveley became a marine painter after working in the Royal Dockyard at Deptford. The Scottish-born William Anderson was likewise a shipwright before becoming an artist. John Harris, like the Cleveleys, grew up in the neighborhood of the Deptford dockyard. His boyhood surroundings inspired an early interest in shipbuilding, manifested in the building of a model sloop, though apparently not in any actual employment in the shipbuilding trade. As an artist, Harris pursued marine drawings as but one of several specializations. He worked as a book designer and illustrator and natural-history draftsman.

With its documentary nature the marine watercolor of the period was the nautical equivalent, in both function and technique, of the topographical watercolor. The combination of precise pen outlines and delicate washes of color that characterize the "stained" or "tinted" drawings of the topographical tradition was equally well-suited to the depiction of ships and rigging. Robert Cleveley's brother John studied with the topographical artist Paul Sandby, who was one of a number of watercolorists employed by naval and military schools to teach their young cadets the art of drawing.

Scott Wilcox

Wilcox, Forrester, O'Neil, Sloan. The Line of Beauty: British Drawings and Watercolors of the Eighteenth Century. Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 2001. pg. 88 cat. no. 70

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]

Masters of the Sea - British Marine Watercolors (National Maritime Museum, 2005-08-25 - 2005-10-25) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

The Line of Beauty : British Drawings and Watercolors of the Eighteenth Century (Yale Center for British Art, 2001-05-19 - 2001-08-05) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]

Masters of the Sea - British Marine Watercolors (Yale Center for British Art, 1987-06-10 - 1987-08-02) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

Eleanor Hughes, Spreading Canvas : Eighteenth-Century British Marine Painting, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 2016, p. 273-274, cat. 133, ND 1373.G74 S67 2016 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Roger Quarm, Masters of the sea : British marine watercolours, , Phaidon, Oxford, UK, 1987, pp. 22, 92, no. 58, color pl. 9, ND2272 G7 Q73 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Scott Wilcox, Line of beauty : British drawings and watercolors of the eighteenth century, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 2001, pg.88, cat. no. 70, NC228 W53 2001 (YCBA) [YCBA]

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