Haughton Forrest

Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne, 1975
Private collection, Melbourne; purchased from the above
Fine Australian and International Paintings and Australia 2000,  Sotheby's,  Sydney, 15-16 August 2000, lot 301
Private Collection, Sydney; purchased from the above

Winter Exhibition, Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne, 28 July-12 August 1975, cat. 18 (as Shipwreck, Cape Raoul, Tasmania)

UV inspection confirms there are small spots of retouching throughout the picture. The work is on an original stretcher and is not lined. The reverse of the work is sealed. The work is otherwise in very good stable condition.
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While Haughton Forrest was a keen yachtsman, and painted a number of particular racing scenes and ship portraits, his maritime views are more often somewhat indeterminate: generalised, romanticised visions of fishing fleets and battleships, storms and shipwrecks, of struggle against the elements. George Brown proclaims that such paintings' '... raging seas, leaden in depth, with green and foaming crests ... on a cruel and rocky coast, epitomise the drama of the Victorian period.'¹

In the present work the vessels are precisely articulated, as might be expected of an experienced seaman. A Melbourne review of 1887 described how 'his drawing is all that could be desired. His coastal accessories and his rigging show that he knows every rope.'²

Here, a disabled coastal trader is shown in all its storm-wrecked detail of broken after mast and torn sails, while the vessel in the foreground is clearly identifiable as a pilot boat come to the rescue; Section 612 of the British Merchant Shipping Act of 1894 prescribed white over red as the pilot flag.

1. George Brown, Haughton Forrest 1826-1925, Melbourne: Malakoff Fine Art Press, 1982, p. 133
2. Daily Telegraph, 5 April 1887, p. 5