Shipping off Exmouth

Thomas Luny (1759 - 1837)

Oil on canvas

1806
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  • About the work
    Location
    Country: Luxembourg
    City: Luxembourg
    Place: British Embassy

    This marine painting is typical of the work of Thomas Luny, who painted numerous views of shipping off the south coast of England. The scene shows several vessels manoeuvring through choppy water, on a breezy day. At the centre of the work a church tower breaks the skyline.

    Although one of Luny’s earliest views of shipping near Exmouth was painted in 1795, this work was made more than ten years later, shortly before Luny moved to Teignmouth, in Devon, just along the coast from Exmouth. The artist went on to paint numerous views in the area, around the coastal towns of Teignmouth, Dawlish, Exmouth and Topsham.

  • About the artist
    Thomas Luny, marine painter, apparently studied with the artist Francis Holman in London. He exhibited mostly at the Royal Academy, where he showed his work every year from 1780 to 1793. He showed nothing after 1793 until 1802, when he exhibited 'Battle of the Nile', and then nothing until the year of his death, when he exhibited three pictures. It is possible that in 1793 he joined the Royal Navy to fight in the French Revolutionary Wars. Luny retired to Teignmouth in Devon, in about 1810, where he lived and worked for the rest of his life. In spite of being crippled by arthritis in both his hands and his legs for over 30 years he continued to paint assiduously and his total life's work is thought to have produced some 3000 pictures.
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  • Details
    Title
    Shipping off Exmouth
    Date
    1806
    Medium
    Oil on canvas
    Dimensions
    height: 56.50 cm, width: 86.50 cm
    Acquisition
    Purchased from Parker Gallery, December 1960
    Inscription
    sdbl
    Provenance
    With Parker Gallery, London; from which purchased in December 1960
    GAC number
    5416