Attributed to Thomas Sewell Robins: The Schooner Yacht America, 1851

Attributed to Thomas Sewell Robins: The Schooner Yacht America, 1851. The full title of this watercolour on paper is ‘Thomas S. Robins, The Schooner Yacht ‘America’ at the time of her first race for the Queen’s Cup’. It shows the famous yacht carrying two foresails and a mizzen, while a few crew members weigh the anchor and attend to the mainsail. A group of gentlemen in top hats and ladies in fully bustled crinolines stand in the stern in front of the helmsman. At the mizzen masthead the two flags flying are the Stars and Stripes and presumably the NYYC burgee. The reverse has two paper labels one for ‘The Quester Gallery, Greenwich, CT’. English, circa 1851.

Provenance: Quester Gallery, Greenwich, CT.

Thomas Sewell Robins (1810-1880) was born in Devonport, Devon. Aged 19 he was admitted into the Royal Academy Schools under, James Northcote, a former pupil of Sir Joshua Reynolds, where his lecturers included J. M. W. Turner. He was an early member of the New Watercolour Society and the Institute of Painters in Watercolours. Robins travelled extensively on the Continent and exhibited seven works at the RA, 39 at the British Institute, 21 at the Suffolk Street Galleries and 317 works at the New Watercolour Society. Robins is famous for his coastal marine subjects, working primarily in watercolours, and examples can be found in the Victoria and Albert Museum (London), Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, the British Museum, the City of Portsmouth Museum, Cartwright Hall (Bradford), Howarth Museum and Gallery (Accrington), Newport Art Gallery, the Williamson Art Gallery and Museum (Birkenhead) and the National Maritime Museum (Greenwich).