'A Waterman at Portsmouth Point' (Bray album) RMG PT1990

'A Waterman at Portsmouth Point' [Bray album]
No. 15 of 74 (PAJ1976 - PAJ2049)
A drawing of a waterman signed and dated 'AV GB Nov 74' (to the life Gabriel Bray). This and PAJ1991, both made at Portsmouth before Bray sailed in the 'Pallas' for Africa in December 1774 are unique, specific records of the low-life denizens of a vanished waterfront world.
They are two of 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 Waterman at Portsmouth Point