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ROBERT STRICKLAND THOMAS...

Currency:GBP Category:Everything Else / Other Start Price:NA Estimated At:7,000.00 - 10,000.00 GBP
ROBERT STRICKLAND THOMAS...
ROBERT STRICKLAND THOMAS
(1787-1853)
H.M.S. QUEEN FLAGSHIP OF THE MEDITERRANEAN FLEET LEAVING MALTA
Signed and dated 1842, oil on canvas
70cm x 105cm (27.5in x 41.5in)
Note: H.M.S. Queen, a three-decker of 110 guns was the flagship at Malta under acting Captain Hastings R Henry. The C-in-C, however was Vice-Admiral Sir Edward William Campbell Rich Owen who is listed in O'Byrne's 1849 Dictionary of Naval Biography.
Lt. Robert Strickland Thomas R.N entered the Royal Navy as an able seaman aboard the Princess Charlotte, frigate in 1805. It is likely that he received his grounding in art in her gunroom from her Captain, George Tobin, an enthusiastic amateur, who later painted with Thomas Luny. Whilst aboard the frigate Creole and cruising off Africa Thomas contracted a disease which left him deaf. Unfit for service he took up painting full time to augment his half
pay and his work is notable not only for it's quality but also for it's accuracy of detail as befits an artist who had spent half his life at sea.
Provenance: Captain William Fordyce Blair R.N. (1805-1888) and thence by descent.
William Blair joined the Royal Naval College in 1818 and H.M.S. Archive in 1820. He was made a Lieutenant in 1839 and Captain in 1858. He served both in the Burmese war, during the destruction of Morea Castle in 1818 and in
engagements at Navarino and Algiers. He founded Port Blair in the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal off the Malaysian coast before succeeding to the Blair Estates in 1841.
Captain Blair was Deputy Lieutenant for Ayrshire and after the death of his wife travelled extensively in Europe where he collected not only paintings and fine art but also species trees from all around the world.
£7,000-10,000