Samuel Atkins, British 1760-1808- High water at Deptford; Low water at Deptford; each pencil, pen and black ink and watercolour on paper, each signed (on the wooden dock), each 20.5 x 29.8 cm., a pair (2). Provenance: With David Messum, London...

Samuel Atkins, British 1760-1808- High water at Deptford; Low water at Deptford; each pencil, pen and black ink and watercolour on paper, each signed (on the wooden dock), each 20.5 x 29.8 cm., a pair (2). Provenance: With David Messum, London [Refs 54 & 55]; With Lowell Libson, London [Nos E0007 & E0008]. Note: Atkins contributed to London's Royal Academy between 1787 and 1796. He then travelled throughout the East Indies until 1804 when he returned to England and continued to exhibit until 1808. Deptford was the first of the Royal Dockyards and has rich historical associations including the knighting of Sir Francis Drake by Queen Elizabeth I aboard the Golden Hind, the legend of Sir Walter Raleigh laying down his cape for Elizabeth, Captain James Cook's third voyage aboard HMS Resolution, and the mysterious apparent murder of Christopher Marlowe in a house along Deptford Strand. For another watercolour by Atkins of Deptford, on a larger scale, see his ‘Men-of-War and other Shipping on the Thames’ at Yale Centre for British Art [B1975.4.17].