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H.M.S. Winchester Watercolor 14 x 20 Cartouched ABOUT THIS PICTURE... H.M.S. Winchester was an ill-fated British Fourth Rate which sank off Key Largo on September 24, 1695. She was assigned to the West Indies Squadron at the time, and was homeward bound for England from Jamaica at the time of her sinking. She had participated in various naval forays in the Indies - mainly against the French in and around Haiti. Her crew was seriously decimated at the time by fevers and tropical illnesses, and bad British Navy diet, and she was really not fit for sea-duty, hence had been dispatched homeward. She went down in about 25 or 30 feet of water about one and a half miles south of the modem Carysfort Reef Lighthouse (within Pennekamp Park). Around 1938 or so, she was discovered by a private individual who managed to raise some of her material. Later the National Geographic did an article on her... Her placement on the bottom was revealed by the dispersement pattern of her guns. When one gun was raised from its sandy bed, a Latin Prayer-Book was found pressed into the sand beneath the heavy barrel and it was still legible! I have taken this latter find for the subject of my cartouche on the painting. I have always wanted to dive her and have several times asked dive boat operators at Pennekamp if they knew of her and if they could conduct me to a dive there. Strangely, (very strange, to me) most of them say they have never heard of her and none had ever dived her! I have dived within just a mile or two of her (City of Washington, Molasses Bank, etc.) I find this very odd... An English publishing house that publishes rare (and very expensive!) books on history, naval warfare, ships, etc. mails me its promotional literature from time to time. A cover on a recent piece showed a frigate breaking up in high seas. This is apparently a detail from a larger painting (?). Anyhow, I took it for my subject matter of Winchester’s sinking: it cannot have been too different. There is no artist’s name on the literature piece, nor credit inside. I attribute it to "Anonymous". (Perhaps it is from a Joseph Turner work?). This was challenge to paint - somber brown skies and all and the angry sea. I had much problem around the bows: the open timberwork is correct for a British Man-O’-War and I have tried to duplicate its depiction in the picture. (This open work, incidentally, was the "heads" or toilets of the crewmen - origin of the designation "head" today among nautical types ... ). However, after studying my version long after it was "done", I have concluded that some at least of the cribwork on the port bow side should show - and it doesn’t. I don’t think it shows in the original either...Otherwise, that’s about it - a routine grounding and break-up on the Florida reefs back in the great days of sail... Something like that could ruin your whole day! BWP 1994 | Home |
