Painting of WWI battleships in the Forth fetches £40k..
AN oil painting of the greatest gathering of warships ever seen – when the German navy surrendered in the Firth of Forth in 1918 – has sold for more than £40,000 at auction.
From the deck of a British battleship, Glasgow Boys artist James Paterson captured the moment at the end of the First World War when the German fleet was escorted into the estuary by hundreds of Allied ships and aircraft.
His painting, The German Fleet After Surrender – Firth of Forth 21 November 1918, was bought by a US bidder for £40,250 at Bonhams’ Scottish Sale. It was described as a ‘painstakingly accurate record’ of the defeated fleet’s surrender prior to its final journey north to Scapa Flow, in the Orkney Islands, where it was scuttled.
May Matthews, Bonhams’ Scottish Art specialist, said it was ‘an extraordinary painting about a fascinating event in history’.