The peat hulk

Arthur Briscoe (1873-1943) was an etcher and painter of marine subjects. Educated at Shrewsbury School, he studied art at the Slade School under Fred Brown and at the Académie Julian in Paris and then spent his time sailing. Briscoe painted and wrote on yachting subjects including Handbook on Sailing under the pseudonym of Clove Hitch. Briscoe portrayed not just sailing vessels and the sea itself but, in particular, he delighted in portraying seafaring men at work.

Briscoe's original prints are now generally acknowledged as the finest marine etchings of the 20th century, as they display both the artist's intimate knowledge of the sea and his mastery of the etching needle. In particular, Briscoe conveyed the motion of the sea itself and the varied effects of light and shade with extraordinary economy of line. In 1926 Briscoe made a superb scale model of the Cutty Sark, a vessel which appears intermittently throughout his sketchbooks.

This etching depicts an old cargo hulk, moored to centre right. In the distant left is a town with a church or cathedral and an imposing classical dome. It is almost certain that the peat hulk of the title would in those days have transported sacks of peat intended to be used as fuel, rather than as a garden fertiliser.

See: http://www.campbell-fine-art.com/artists.php?id=128

Dr Mark Stocker   Curator, Historical International Art   March 2018