Lost Painting Discovered | RNLI Sea Rescue from 1860

Purchased in America over 7 months ago, this is the first time Charlie Wallrock has seen this painting! It’s just arrived in a container from the US and here we’ll unbox it! A Fine and Highly Important Painting Titled Saved from the Wreck by Thomas Brooks, Exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1862 and Showing a Lifeboat Returning to St. Ives Harbour with its Crew and Those They Have Rescued     Provenance   The estate of Glen Boyer Sherry Rampy by whom gifted to the previous owner Another private American collection   Exhibitions   Exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1862, no.541 Exhibited at the Society of Artists Exhibition in Leeds, 1862 Exhibited in March of 1870 at Mr Dew’s Gallery, 32 Bath Street Leamington Spa (public admission to see the picture and its companion piece cost 6d) Exhibited later that same month in the Rathbone Gallery, 30 Church Street, in Liverpool. The same admission price was charged with all proceeds going to the RNLI Exhibited in April 1870 in John Wilson’s art gallery in Briggate, Leeds-the first exhibition held in the gallery.      

This wonderful painting, in its original ropework frame, has a very interesting exhibition history having featured in two important academic shows and then been taken on a tour around part of the country to raise funds for the RNLI. That the Lifeboat Institution should have been attracted to this painting is unsurprising as it is an unflinching portrayal of the bravery of the men and women involved in its operations at this point and the dangers they faced on a daily basis.  Conceived as part of a pair with the other painting showing the departure of the lifeboat from port, this painting is set in the harbour of St Ives as is revealed by a newspaper account published in the Liverpool Mercury on the 25th of March 1870. The account reads as follows:   ‘NATIONAL LIFEBOAT SCENES-Two paintings of a highly interesting order are now on exhibition in the gallery of Mr Rathbone, 30, Church Street, in this town, which cannot fail to be attractive in such a seaport as Liverpool. The paintings, which are entitled ‘Launching the lifeboat’ and ‘Saved from the wreck’, by Mr. T. Brooks, were both shown at the Royal Academy, and are now submitted to public inspection under the patronage of the National Lifeboat Institution………. The other painting, ‘Saved from the wreck’, represents a scene in the harbour of St. Ives, Cornwall. The stormy weather has prevented the fishermen from following their avocation, and their boats are anchored beneath a sheltered portion of the high ground on which their cottages stand. The lifeboat has rescued a crew from a vessel in danger, and is represented as entering amidst the cheers of the crowd on the stone wall of the harbour on the one side and those on the jetty on the other. Nothing could surpass the marvellous accuracy of the details of the boat as she is brought slightly round to catch the ascending power of the incoming wave, the spray of which has filled with alarm a little child just rescued from the wreck, and crouching in the stern of the boat. Hard by this figure is an interesting group of a man encouraging his fainting wife and sickly child by pointing to the cheering crowd upon the harbour walls as proof of their safety. Altogether the paintings are of a most attractive order, and by their appeal to the sympathies of human nature are sure to win their way to public approval’.   The paintings made such an impact that they were also selected as subjects for a series of lithographs of popular paintings as the day executed by Frederick Hunter and published by Brooks and Sons in 1871.   Thomas Brooks (1818-1892)   Described by Christopher Wood in his Dictionary of Victorian Painters as a ‘Painter of genre and landscapes’, Brooks produced several lifeboat-related scenes in his career including a celebrated image of Grace Darling. Brooks considered himself something of a social realist. Born in Hull, he studied with Henry Perronet Briggs. He exhibited widely, including at the Royal Academy between 1843 and 1882.