'A Seaman fishing off a gun' (Bray album) RMG PT2015

'A Seaman fishing off a gun' [Bray album]
No. 40 of 74 (PAJ1976 - PAJ2049)
Titled and dated as above and signed and dated 'AVprGB Jany 75' (to the life by Gabriel Bray), on the backing paper. Drawn on the 'Pallas', possibly at anchor in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, en route for Africa, or in Senegal roads. In terms of subject it is another version of PAJ2016.
Both are among 73 drawings by Bray (plus one signed 'NF 1782') preserved in a 19th-century album. They have now been separately remounted. Bray (1750-1823), was second lieutenant of the 44-gun ‘Pallas’ under Captain the Hon. William Cornwallis (1744-1819) – later a well-known admiral - on two voyages (1774-77) to report on British interests in West Africa, including the slave trade. The dated drawings refer only to the first of these, from December 1774 to September 1775, though a few may be from the second. Others comprise country views, some of Deal, Kent (where Bray may have come from), and others of social-history interest.

A Seaman fishing off a gun