Footnotes

• It has not been possible to provide an exact location for this fine pair of oils, though with the quay strewn with millstones and barrels as used in sugar production, it is likely to be the West Indies.

Saleroom notices

• George Robertson (British, 1748-1788) A view of Montego Bay, Jamaica; Barrels of sugar awaiting shipment, Jamaica, a pair oil on canvas 63.5 x 101.6 cm. (25 x 40 in.) £20,000 - 40,000 George Robertson, a "landskip painter", was brought to Jamaica ca. 1774/5 by his patron William Beckford (1744-1799) of Hertford Penn, Westmorland, Jamaica and Sommerley Hall, Suffolk. He produced several paintings for Beckford in the picturesque aesthetic tradition, providing portraits of estates for the wealthy Creole and non-Creole Jamaican elites. Beckford, after having Robertson produce six Jamaican views that were published by Boydell, and were well known and are still in circulation today, encouraged Robertson to paint for other Creole planters at the time. Robertson produced 15 Jamaican landscape views that were exhibited at the Incorporated Society of Artists between 1775 and 1778. Five of these works were of Beckford's estates. The balance comprised of sugar estates for other proprietors,