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Creator:
John Cleveley the elder, ca. 1712–1777
Title:

Launching at Deptford

Date:
ca. 1757
Medium:
Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
41 3/4 × 72 1/8 inches (106 × 183.2 cm)
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1981.25.108
Classification:
Paintings
Collection:
Paintings and Sculpture
Link to Frame:
B1981.25.108FR
Subject Terms:
audience | barge (ceremonial watercraft) | boats | buildings | city | cityscape | clock tower | dock | flags | longboats | marine art | men | people | reflections | river | rowboats | sailors | sails | ships | ships of the line | sloop (sailing vessel) | warships | women | yacht
Associated Places:
Deptford | England | Greater London | Thames | United Kingdom
Access:
Not on view
Note: To make an appointment to see this work, please contact the Paintings and Sculpture department at ycba.paintings@yale.edu. Please visit the Paintings and Sculpture collections page on our website for more details.
Link:
https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:619
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This painting depicts the launch of one of the many great warships built at the Royal Dockyard at Deptford. The ship being launched from the double dock, to the left of the Great Storehouse that occupies the center of the composition, has not been identified. In the docks to the right of the Great Storehouse are vessels in various stages of construction. John Cleveley’s picture emphasizes the presence of spectators, male and female, who watch from the quay, from the windows of the Great Storehouse, from the house of the Master Shipwright to the left of the ship being launched, and even from the stern galleries of the ship itself. Henry Fielding identified the attraction of such scenes in 1750: “the yards of Deptford and of Woolwich are noble sights: and give us a just idea of the great perfection to which we are arrived in building those floating castles.” Cleveley and his two sons were among the several marine painters who had experience working in dockyards prior to or concomitant with careers as marine painters.

Gallery label for Spreading Canvas - Eighteenth-Century British Marine Painting (Yale Center for British Art, 2016-09-09 - 2016-12-04)

Spreading Canvas - Eighteenth - Century British Marine Painting (Yale Center for British Art, 2016-09-09 - 2016-12-04) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]

Malcolm Cormack, Concise Catalogue of Paintings in the Yale Center for British Art, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 1985, pp. 54-55, N590.2 A83 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Malcolm Cormack, Seascapes : Yale Center for British Art., , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 1977, p. [ 5 ], no.18, V 1909 (YCBA) Vertical File [YCBA]

Eleanor Hughes, Spreading Canvas : Eighteenth-Century British Marine Painting, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 2016, p. 206, cat. 67, ND 1373.G74 S67 2016 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Sarah ( Sarah Helen ) Monks, The Visual Economies of the Downriver Thames in Eighteenth-Century British Art, Visual Culture in Britain, vol. 7, Summer 2006, pp. 9-10, 11, 18 [fn 38], fig. 6, N6761 V57 (YCBA) Also available on line : Art Source [YCBA]

Painting in England : 1700-1850, Arts Review, vol. 37,, April 1963, p. 21, V 2337 [ORBIS]

Painting in England 1700-1850 : collection of Mr. & Mrs. Paul Mellon : Exhibition at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, , 1,2, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA, 1963, p. 49 (v.1), no. 23, pl. 27, ND466 V57 v.1-2 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Painting in England 1700-1850 from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, The Royal Academy of Arts Winter Exhibition 1964-65., , Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK, 1964, p. 15 (v.1), no. 51, ND466 R68 1964/65 (YCBA) [YCBA]


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