
Leo Webster
Senior Specialist
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Sold for £7,500 inc. premium
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Senior Specialist

Head of Sale

Specialist Consultant Collectors, Science & Marine
This painting is an early example of Charles Napier Hemy's style and depicts Tynemouth bay with the ruins of Tynemouth Castle and Priory visible on the headland as well as Tynemouth Castle lighthouse.
By mid-1862, Hemy had returned to Newcastle - his birthplace, from Lyon where he had been studying the priesthood at a Dominican monastery since 1861. Even though he had rejected the Church as a possible career, it must have had some significance to Hemy to include the ruins of what had once been a Benedictine monastery in this painting.
The Tynemouth Castle lighthouse was still in use in 1864 when this picture was painted, it had an oil-fired light at the time. It was replaced by the St. Mary's Lighthouse in 1895 and was subsequently demolished in 1898.
By 1863 Hemy was living with his father in Gatsehead where he probably painted this picture. It shows the influence by Hemy's teacher William Bell Scott (1811 – 1890) who was head of the Government School of Design in Newcastle where Hemy attended from 1852 – 1855. Scott and in turn Hemy was strongly influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites and their particular form of realism which required a high level of accurate detail. Hemy's skill at painting detail is evident in this painting in the foreground of the basket, foreshore and stern of the boat - the latter has the faint words of Tynemouth Castle visible which implies the boat was used as a ferry from the shore to the castle.
We are grateful to Catherine Wallace for her assistance with cataloguing this lot.