Montague Dawson: Wind Aft, The Repulse

Montague Dawson: Wind Aft, The Repulse.

This watercolour on paper is framed under glass and signed in the left corner.  It shows the East Indiaman sailing downwind under full canvas.  The reverse has a paper trade label from Harlow, McDonald & Co, 667 Fifth Avenue, New York, giving the title “‘Wind Aft’, The Repulse, Water color by Montague Dawson”.  There are also notes in pencil ‘The Repulse East Indiaman, 1425 tons.  Built in 1820 at Green and Wigram’s Blackwall Yard.  She was broken up in 1844 after making many voyages to the East.  No. 24733.’

East Indiaman was a general name for any sailing ship operating between East India and Europe from the 17th to the 19th century.  This included Austrian, Danish, Dutch, English, French, Portuguese and Swedish vessels.  Some of the British ships were also called tea clippers.

Repulse was a first-class East Indiaman built in the Blackwall Yard during the last days of the East India Company.  The East India Docks were built on the Thames in the early nineteenth century after the West India Docks (1800-6) and the London Docks (1802-5) and served only vessels engaged in trade to that part of the world.  Dock basins allowed ships to load and unload during all stages of the tide.  There is a lithograph by Hudson titled ‘The Repulse East Indiaman in East India Dock Basin, Sepr. 25th, 1839’ in the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, No. 140483.

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This object is eligible for a Certificate of BADA Provenance