Details

Object type

watercolour

Title

Stoke-hole of the "Ellora", in the Red Sea

Artist/Maker

William Simpson maker

Place Associated

Egypt, Red Sea (place depicted)

Date

1872

Materials

pencil, pen, and watercolour, paper

Dimensions

unframed: 270 mm x 435 mm

Description

Watercolour depiction of men working in an engine room of a ship, all without shoes, and many wearing little clothing. One man shovels coal into a stoke hole, two others stand talking, holding their tools. A group of workers is coming in the door at the top left. Grey wash. Mounted on card. "Blue do/7" written on top left of mount. "No.10) on bottom left corner of the painting. Signed and dated (Aug 1872). In 1872, William Simpson left for a long trip to Egypt, China, Japan & USA. The sketches he made were engraved for the Illustrated London News. At this time, he came to an agreement with the ILN that his sketches would be returned to him after they had been engraved. As well as being exhibited in the Burlington Gallery in London in 1874, some, including this one, were also reproduced using the Heliotype process in a book called Meeting the Sun: A Journey all Round the World, published in the same year. This illustration appeared on page 74 of the book. At the Burlington Gallery exhibition the sketch was advertised for sale for 6 guineas, with the caption: "This sketch was made in the Red Sea; where it is hot enough on deck, but in the stokehole it was 145 degrees. The men at work here are principally negroes from Zanzibar, but even these strong fellows often faint and have to be carried on deck." The men working on the deck of this ship are likely to have been enslaved people.

ID Number

MLSC.128383.1

Location

In storage