Adam's IRISH OLD MASTERS 5th November 2024

104 George Mounsey Wheatley Atkinson was born at Queenstown (Cobh), County Cork to English parents and lived in the Cork area for most of his life. His early years were spent as a ship’s carpenter and he was later appointed Surveyor of Shipping and Emigrants at Cobh. Apparently self-taught, it has been assumed that Atkinson did not take to painting until later in life. However, his Boating Party in Cork Harbour of 1840 (Crawford Art Gallery, Cork), which depicts a recreational boating outing, already shows considerable skill. A year later he exhibited five works representing ‘different views of our noble harbour of Cork, in storm, in calm, in haze and in sunshine, together with brigs, schooners, cutters and steamers in every position and circumstance’ at the inaugural exhibition of the Cork Art Union. In 1849 the artist held an exhibition in a pa - vilion at Cobh to mark the Queen’s visit and his Visit of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert to Queenstown was lithographed an published by W. Scraggs of Cork. A Volume of Sketches of Norway, Taken during a Y achting Cruise in the Summer of 1852 was lithographed by his son and published by Guy Brothers, Cork. Another of his sons, Richard Peterson Atkinson was also a landscape and marine painter until his premature death aged twenty-six. Between 1842 and 1870 Atkinson exhibited twenty-one works at the Royal Hibernian Academy. He died at his home in Cobh in January 1884. This is one of the largest and most ambitious of Atkinson’s views of shipping in what was his life-long subject, the ‘noble harbour of Cork’. The painting depicts the Blue Squadron of the Royal Navy gathering in the mouth of Cork harbour. The cen - tral three decker under sail being a first rate ship of the line is possibly HMS St Vincent, according to Naval records the flagship of Admiral William Bowles, a rear Admiral of the Blue Squadron who in 1843 was part of a larger fleet visit to Cork under the command of Admiral Sir Charles Rowley. The flagship flies the ‘Blue Ensign’ of the squadron and the ‘Blue Peter’ indicating that the fleet is preparing to leave the port.