
Ingram Reid
Director
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Sold for £53,220 inc. premium
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Provenance
With Waddington Galleries, London
Lord McAlpine
With The Mayor Gallery, London, where acquired by
Christopher Hull, thence by descent to the present owner
Private Collection, U.K.
Literature
Edwin Mullins, Alfred Wallis: Cornish Primitive Painter, Macdonald, London, 1967, p.60, cat.no.28 (ill.b&w, as The Wreck of the Alba and life-boat)
The Alba was a Panamanian Steamer that ran aground during a storm on Porthmeor Beach, St. Ives, 31st January 1938. The St. Ives lifeboat was launched, but tossed by a huge wave onto the island, where Wallis has depicted it (lower right). Amazingly the lifeboat crew and all but 5 of the men from the Alba were saved. The subject was a favourite of Wallis's at the end of his life and other versions are in the Tate and Kettle's Yard, Cambridge.