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 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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EXCLUSIVE - Under Licence from the Ministry of Defence

Artists Harbour sells photographic and art paper prints of Royal Navy photos from the Trafalgar 200 International Fleet Review (T200 IFR) plus the few remaining copies of the (all zones) DVD of the week’s events, including the brilliant fireworks in which 45 tons of high explosuives went up during the re-enactment of the Battle of Trafalgar!

Probably the biggest peacetime naval event the world will see throughout the whole of the 21^st Century took place on Tuesday, June 28, 2005 in the Solent off Portsmouth, UK. A unique range of sea vessels filled the waters of the eastern Solent and aircraft and helicopters took part in thrilling fly-pasts.

The Royal Navy had invited 35 foreign navies and 24 maritime organisations from around the world to send a total of 105 warships and naval support ships plus 51 non-naval vessels to take part in friendship in the International Fleet Review to celebrate Trafalgar 200 ( T200 ) – 200 years since 1805, when at the Battle of Trafalgar Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson’s fleet finally destroyed Napoleon’s ability to invade Britain with his then invincible armies by sea. Nelson, in his famous flagship HMS Victory, died a hero at Trafalgar.

Vessels at the T200 International Fleet Review ranged from the massive USS Saipan and France’s Charles de Gaulle aircraft carriers to romantic tall ships under sail, tugs and Cunard’s famous QE2 luxury liner, as well as a huge contingent of all types of warship from the Royal Navy. Merchant ships, racing and cruising yachts, fishing boats and family and work boats were also there - a dramatic reminder of the importance of the sea in Britain’s national life.

The ships queued almost into Southampton as they were reviewed by Her Majesty The Queen, Elizabeth II, on waters that had seen the massive naval reviews of Victorian and Edwardian times – when Britain’s navy really did rule the waves and was always kept bigger than the combined might of the world’s next two biggest navies – all the way back to King Henry VIII inspecting his warships in the early 16^th Century as he built the Royal Navy.

• List of the Royal Navy ships at the Trafalgar 200 International Fleet Review
• List of International Navies and ships attending the Trafalgar 200 International Fleet Review
• List of Civilians Ships attending the Trafalgar 200 International Fleet Review

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HMS Illustrious, then flagship of the Royal Navy, sails out of Portsmouth Harbour into the Solent, off the coast of Southsea silhouetted against the afternoon sun of summer, 2005.
In the centre of the coastline can be seen the outline of the rollercoaster at the Clarence Pier funfair and on the right the tower of Portsmouth’s historic Anglican Cathedral, St. Thomas’s.
Just above the tower Spitbank Fort juts out of the water, continuing its eternal vigilance against Napoleon III’s possible invasion.
Spitbank and the three other forts (also visible further out) were known as “Palmerston’s Follies” after the Newport Isle of Wight Member of Parliament who as British Prime Minister had them built between 1865 and 1880 as part of a chain of defences against the French, encircling Portsmouth by sea and land.

This picture is now available as a print for £34.99 or as a greeting card for £1.49 on our webshop.

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ORIGINAL TITLE:
The Encampment of the English Forces Near Portsmouth, Together With a View of the English and French Fleets at the Commencement of the Action Between Them on the XIXth of July MDXLV (19^th of July 1545)

OTHER NAMES:

• The Cowdry Picture
• The Cowdry Print
• The Last Moments of the Mary Rose

This historic picture was originally painted in 1545 or just afterwards from eye-witness accounts – and was destroyed by fire in 1793. It shows the last man standing on the crow’s nest of the great Tudor warship Mary Rose – the rest of the ship has disappeared as she sinks below the waves of the Solent.

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