
Leo Webster
Senior Specialist
Sold for £11,250 inc. premium
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Head of Sale
Specialist Consultant Collectors, Science & Marine
Provenance
Anon. sale, Bonhams, London, 17 August 1999, lot 234.
Purchased from above sale by the present owner.
This magnificent example of Dixon's work is rare, as, rather than his more usual views of the Pool of London, it depicts the Royal Hospital, Greenwich, a couple of miles downstream, with the Trafalgar whilst under tow. The iron clipper Trafalgar was built for Donaldson, Rose & Co. of Aberdeen by E.I. Scott of Greenock in 1875. A large full-rigged ship of 1,429 tons, she measured 242 feet in length with a 38 1/2 foot beam, and was intended for the Australian wool trade. A regular member of the so-called Wool Fleet, she was not renowned as a flyer although her best recorded passage of Sydney to London in 90 days during the winter of 1887-88 was almost the fastest of that year. Usually it took her between 95 and 105 days, a good average time for the run home and one which gave her her solid reputation. Eventually retiring from the wool trade, she survived the Great War, probably due to the fact that she was then based in Christiania (Oslo) and sailing under neutral Norwegian colours, and was still a familiar sight in London's river into the 1930s.
We are grateful to Michael Naxton for his assistance with cataloguing this lot.