Old Bosham View Up for Auction Shows Influence of Harbour Master Stanhope Forbes

Painted by Percy Robert Craft (1856-1934), the 20 x 30in scene, titled Old Bosham, is as identifiable today as it would have been when it was painted, getting on for a century ago.

To the right hand edge you can just see the main building of what is now Bosham Sailing Club, while the quay and buildings are much the same too.

What makes this painting especially interesting, though, is the connection with the doyen of such scenes in English life, Stanhope Forbes.

Forbes was the founder and guiding hand of the Newlyn School of Art in Cornwall, a highly successful artists’ colony, where he specialised in everyday life genre scenes, notably of the beach and quay, en plein air – the master of harbour views, if you like – with the catch coming in or fishermen and women mending nets and going about their work.

Craft and his wife moved to Newlyn in 1885 to join the colony, lodging with Forbes and his wife, later joining her in setting up the Newlyn Industrial Class project, which was responsible for making Newlyn copper.

Look at any harbourside scene by Forbes and the influence is clear: the dignity and calm of the subjects, regardless of their status, the tranquillity of the setting and the mastery of light as it plays on the water.

Craft’s view here has the same sincere approach and wide appeal with the bonus of a provenance that can be traced back to his son in 1935 thanks to a label to the reverse. The label reads: “I, H. B. Craft, son of Percy R. Craft, R.B.C., R.C.A., Certify that this picture was painted by my Father and was sold by me in his Studio at No. 77 Bedford Gardens, Kensington, W.8. in April 1935”, 20” x 30”. 

Appearing alongside a view of Dell Quay, and a view of Chichester Cross, both by the contemporary artist Alan Simpson (1941-2007), Old Bosham has an estimate of £3,000-5,000.