Is this really the Lincolnshire coast?
Artist could hAve mAde mistAke with title
ACCORDING to the artist the painting depicts “Evening on the Lincolnshire coast”. Not everyone is convinced. “If that’s the Lincolnshire coast I’m a Dutchman,” laughed one yellowbelly viewer.
And with a rocky beach, chalk cliffs, a port nestling on an inlet under the lea of great hillside and dramatic bays and headlands stretching away into the distance, the picture doesn’t seem to show any bit of the Lincolnshire coast that I’ve ever seen. Having said that I’ve only lived in the county for forty years so there may be readers who know better.
The watercolour painting is the work of John Frances Branegan (1843-1909), a Dublin-born marine artist who moved to London as a young man in the late 1860s. He painted scenes on the Thames and around the south coast, with some success: Between 1871 and 1875 he had three pictures accepted for exhibition at the Royal Academy and another by the Royal Society of British Arts.
Branegan relocated north, to Whitby, in the early 1880s and it is at this time that he began his travels along the East Coast, painting scenes from Scotland and the borders down through Yorkshire - and beyond.
He certainly visited Grimsby, painting a number of pictures depicting the entrance to the docks, but what about this curious “Lincolnshire coast” picture.
It has all the elements that Branegan loved and are to be seen in countless of his paintings: Coastal scene, activity on the beach, shipping offshore and in port, dramatic landscape coming down to the sea. Oftentimes these pictures were not titled but in this case he did title it, alongside his signature, on the bottom right of the painting.
Did he just make a mistake? Did he work up a sketch of somewhere else thinking it was Lincolnshire. Did he think he had travelled down to Lincolnshire when he was still in Yorkshire? Did he think the flat, boring Lincolnshire coastline needed a bit of added drama? We will never know – unless of course some brilliant reader is able to identify the view. That would be marvellous.
Branegan’s watercolour paintings sell at auction for anywhere between fifty pounds and a couple of thousand. Evening on the Lincolnshire Coast sold for £190 when it went under the hammer last year. The same auction saw his picture of sailing vessels around the entrance to Grimsby Docks for £170.
Meanwhile, a word about the market as we head towards the pre-Christmas auctions that will be taking place all over the country in a few weeks’ time. These festive sales love to have things with present possibilities - jewellery, watches and collectables of every imaginable kind.
It presents a particularly good opportunity for people looking to dispose of unwanted items and raise some cash. Care needs to be exercised of course. The value of jewellery for example can be way beyond bullion prices if the piece is rare or interesting. Top-name watches are making breathtaking amounts of money. And just a few weeks after a Victorian Grimsby ginger beer bottle sold for £1,500, I probably do not need to say anything about collectables.
Robert Horner is an independent local auctioneer and valuer based in northern Lincolnshire. He can be reached on 07970 126311 or at rjhbrodian@btinternet.com.