George Cruikshank (1792-1878), was a noted cartoonist with a biting line in sarcasm and political satire. He was also the first illustrator of Oliver Twist, one of the greatest novels penned by his close friend, Charles Dickens, with such memorable pictures as ‘Oliver Asking For More’, and ‘Fagin In The Condemned Cell’. Their friendship ended when, later in life, the cartoonist became a passionate advocate for the temperance movement while Dickens remained opposed. Cruikshank was considered a great enough artist to be exhumed from his original burial place in order to be re-buried in St Paul’s Cathedral, London.

Wikipedia notes that “Cruikshank’s work included a personification of England named John Bull who was developed from about 1790 in conjunction with other British satirical artists such as James Gillray, and Thomas Rowlandson.” Gilray was one of his major influences and Cruikshank eventually replaced him as England’s most popular satirist.

Cruikshank’s series of 8 naval-themed cartoons lampoon prominent figures in military and political life. The cartoons, each labelled with a Plate number from No.1 to No.8, chronicle the career in the Royal Navy of Master Blockhead, who starts as a Midshipman. Our reproduction prints of the series were taken from original Victorian engraved editions and watercoloured for us by a skilled artist. The colours used were based on the colours in a set of the same cartoons in the Royal Naval Museum, Portsmouth, England. Our prints are reproduced by the giclee process using long-life archival quality materials.

These 8 naval cartoons and Frontispiece constitute The Sailors Progress series and are available from Artists Harbour webshop.

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The artist William Lionel Wyllie RA was a dominant talent in British maritime art from the end of the 19th century until well into the 20th. His works are on display not only in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard at the Royal Naval Museum and here at Artists Harbour Gallery, but also at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, Tate Britain as well as other collections.

Wyllie was born in London in 1851 and became famous and successful through painting maritime scenes in both oil and watercolour, many of which he published as editions of etchings. Wyllie himself created the etchings from his own pictures.
His name spread, along with that of Charles Dixon, when he worked as an illustrator in the late Victorian era for the popular illustrated tabloids, The Graphic and the Illustrated London News.

A notable Wyllie artwork is a picture (”Come to Southsea and Board the Old Ship”) showing public access to Britain’s iconic 18th-century warship, HMS Victory, on which Admiral Lord Nelson died while leading the great 1805 defeat at Trafalgar of Napoleon’s ambitions to invade Britain. This picture is also for sale here.

Wyllie was a prime mover in the public campaign to get HMS Victory moved from lying idly out in the waters of Portsmouth Harbour on the English south coast to her current position in dry dock as a visitor attraction at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, just a few yards from where current RN aircraft carriers and other warships come and go. She is now one of Britain’s favourite tourist attractions and is only a few yards from the remains of Tudor Warship Mary Rose. HMS Victory remains a serving warship in the Royal Navy and is the flagship of Britain’s Second Sea Lord.

Despite his failing eyesight and old age, near the end of his life Wyllie pushed himself to the limit physically and mentally to create the massive, 42ft.-wide semi-circular Panorama of the Battle of Trafalgar which can still be seen today in the Royal Naval Museum.

Artists Harbour sells original Wyllie etchings, modern reproduction prints of a number of Wyllie’s etchings and watercolours, greetings cards reproducing some of Wyllie’s works and DVDs about Wyllie. Go to Wyllie’s page on our webshop to see all the artworks we have in stock.

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The unidentified flying object seen at high altitude over England’s South Coast a week ago has at last been identified… it was actually 16 multi-coloured, giant helium-filled balloons flying in formation, each one towing a long ribbon tied to a postcard from Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.
“I was amazed how the balloons stayed together as a close group at least 10 miles after they were released in the strong breeze, and how long we could see them with the naked eye,” said Artists Harbour art gallery director Leon Reis.

“They looked like a bunch of polka dots and within two minutes they were still completely visible, very high in the sky and speeding past Chichester, heading southeast over the English Channel and looking set to reach France within the hour,” said Leon. “At one point I started to worry about a high-flying light aircraft that appeared to be in their path”.

The balloons were let go by a sales team from the pharmaceutical giant Glaxo SmithKline, who had hired the Grade 1-listed art gallery in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard for a team-building awayday.

One of their exercises had involved each of the 16 team members writing observations about the team on a postcard of HMS Victory. What the team members didn’t know was that the postcards would be collected, addressed back to them and stamped, then laminated to make them waterproof. Finally, a hole was punched in each encapsulated card for a ribbon to attach it to a helium-filled balloon. The surprise climax of the day was for everybody to release their balloons and send them sailing into the sky, with a prize for anybody who eventually gets their own postcard back through the post.

Disaster nearly struck when the helium balloons, arranged from London, were delivered and were found not to have enough helium in them to even lift one postcard. But a quick call from Artists Harbour to Portsmouth city centre novelty shop Uneedus saved the day… within an hour they had provided 16 huge balloons, each 60cm wide BEFORE inflation, pumped up tight with helium.

“When they were blown up the balloons were so big I could only get five at a time into the back of my big Volvo estate car, even with the seats down,” said Leon. “I thought they might lift me off the ground, let alone a postcard”.

The team released the balloons between HMS Victory and HMS Ark Royal, berthed a few yards away in HM Naval Base.

If any ever of the British-stamped postcards ever make it back from France to Glaxo SmithKline’s London HQ, Artists Harbour promises to let you know. If they don’t make it, perhaps complaints on a postcard to the EU would be appropriate?

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This picture from a lithograph by A. Pernet is a detailed panorama of activity on Southsea seafront in 1865.

Apart from the paddle steamers taking tourists on pleasure trips, the army offficers riding on the common and the bathing machines protecting the modesty of those taking the waters, the scene is almost unchanged from what one sees today. The major exception would be that the pier on the left with its paddle steamer is today the landing place for hovercraft to the Isle of Wight.

This large print (1000 x 490 mm) is now available for £30 on our webshop.

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The Embarkation at Dover
By an unknown artist, c.1545
The Royal Collection 2007, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

This fabulous painting of the warship Mary Rose and some of the most important warships in Henry VIII’s early navy is one of the stars of this summer’s Young Henry VIII exhibition at Hampton Court Palace near London, the Tudor King’s most famous residence.

A series of important Tudor paintings are brought together in the exhibition alongside audiovisual displays, interactive touch screens and historic quotes to tell the story of dashing Prince Henry who founded what became the Royal Navy. Almost the first act of his reign was to order the building of the Mary Rose, a revolutionary warship – the first with gunports in her side to allow broadsides to be fired.

This picture, The Embarkation of Henry VIII at Dover, shows the Mary Rose and her sister warship the Great Harry in 1520 as Henry VIII set sail for a meeting with King Francis I of France – they had signed a peace treaty in 1518 – accompanied by 6,000 members of the English court.

We can’t sell you the Queen’s picture of The Embarkation of Henry VIII at Dover from Hampton Court, but Artists Harbour has a magnificent print of it measuring 1240 x 658 mm. It is printed on glorious hand-made paper with specially made inks using engraved plates made c.1780 by artist Samuel Grimm and engraver James Basire. The result has then been hand-coloured. This truly magnificent and unique print is on sale for £750.

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