Lot 302
  • 302

William John Huggins

Estimate
10,000 - 15,000 GBP
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Description

  • William John Huggins
  • The clipper 'Red Rover' off the China coast
  • inscription on the reverse: 'Red Rover/ belonging to Alexander Robertson./ father of M F Longueville'
  • oil on canvas, unlined

Provenance

Mr. Alexander Robertson, Merchant of Macao (according to an inscription on the reverse);
by descent within the family until sold;
Anonymous sale, ('The property of a lady'), London, Sotheby's, 12 March 1986, lot 3, for £21,000;
With Martyn Gregory, London.

Exhibited

Hong Kong, Martyn Gregory Gallery, Hong Kong Arts Centre, Canton and the China trade: an exhibition of early pictures relating to the Far East, 13–18 May 1986, cat. no. 44.

Catalogue Note

Alexander Robertson was in loose partnership with the firm of Jardine and Matherson during the 1820s and 1830s. When Robertson returned to his native Aberdeenshire, he commissioned two paintings of ships he had been associated with from William John Huggins, this of the Red Rover and a second of the Sylph.1 The Red Rover was the first vessel of the New Jardine and Matherson fleet. She was copied from an American Privateer and with her flush deck, and that she lay long and low in the water, she was able to travel at greater speeds than her rivals, giving Jardine and Matherson a great advantage in the lucrative trade of opium.  She was recorded to have run from Calcutta to Lin Tin in eighteen days.

1. Anonymous sale, ('The property of a lady'), London, Sotheby's, 12 March 1986, lot 2, for £17,000.