Contemporary British School, A Beached Boat, Mousehole Harbour

Mousehole is a small fishing village on Mount’s Bay, near Penzance in Cornwall. Painters have worked in its granite harbour since the days of the Newlyn School, and Stanhope Forbes, the school’s leader, painted it more than once.

A small rowing boat rests bow-on on pale sand, its hull streaked with red and white. Beyond is a band of blue water under a soft, cloudy sky. The paint is thick in places, and the weave of the canvas shows through the thinner passages.

Oil or acrylic on stretched canvas, unframed. Signed indistinctly lower left. Inscribed in pencil on the reverse ‘mousehole harbour’.