Details:

 

Oil on Artist's Board

Measuring 17 inches by 21 inches / 30 inches by 34 inches framed
In a superb 19thc ebonized Flemish-style ripple frame c1860

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Illustrated:

 

Southey, R. "Life of Nelson" illustrated by Frank Brangwyn, Gibbings & Co. (1911),

illustrated as a chromolithograph plate and titled 'After Trafalgar'.

Whall, W.B. "Romance of Navigation" illustrated by Frank Brangwyn,

S Low Marston & Co (1925), frontispiece titled 'After Trafalgar'.

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Literature:

 

Shaw-Sparrow, W. "Prints & Drawings by Frank Brangwyn" John Lane,

The Bodley Head, London (1919) p219.

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Provenance:

 

Private Collection, Toronto Canada. Previous whereabouts unknown

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Description:

 

As Mr. Shaw-Sparrow recounts, "in 1911, [Brangwyn] enriched and completed a very charming edition of Southey's Life of Nelson...several colour-plates, all from good blocks and well printed, we have seen already; but others are less familiar to Brangwyn's versatility..."An Italian Water Festival" is amusing as an extemporised pagaent, and also because of its contrast with "After Trafalgar" where imaginative fervour gathers with coming dusk and storm around crippled battleships, one of which has a fatefulness accordant with Nelson's death in victory" (p219).

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On the reverse of Brangwyn's After Trafalgar we are offered a rare glimpse into the works history: firstly, the only known example of Brangwyn using the reverse of a work as his colouring palette, and secondly, pencil notations from the publisher of Southey's Life of Nelson detailing the receipt of the original work from Brangwyn as well as instructions to the lithographer on the colouring, sizing and print dates of the work.

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Brangwyn eloquently captured the character of this work and it's unique interpretation of one of the most famous and beloved battles in the history of England, when he proposed that "Art is individuality added to Tradition".

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Many thanks to Dr Libby Horner for her assistance in cataloguing this work.