Fishermen mending baskets, Isle of Wight

Luke Clennell was a native of Northumberland and was trained as a wood engraver under Thomas Bewick (1753-1828). His success in this medium led to a move to London, where he was encouraged by Benjamin West (1738-1820), President of the Royal Academy. Clennell exhibited watercolours at the Royal Academy and was elected an Associate of the Society of Painters in WaterColours in 1812. His mature painting career was relatively short-lived and his watercolours few as the pressure of work from a large picture commissioned by the Earl of Bridgewater in 1814 caused Clennell to lose his reason in 1817 and he eventually died in an asylum in 1840. Hints of his instability are found in a review of 1811, ‘A fine genius such as his requires the curb rather than the spur; its impetuosity, if not regulated and tempered by discretion, soon exhausts itself’ (Ackermann’s Repository, V, 1811, p. 347, cited in T. Wilcox, The Triumph of Watercolour, 2005, p. 64). However the present watercolour, possibly exhibited at the British Institution in 1811, shows little of such exuberance, depicting a calm and steady scene as one man whittles a stick while his companion makes rope. Clennell clearly relished the opportunity to depict the extra details this quiet moment has presented with the baskets, the mooring post and the rustic door to the cottage on the right of the watercolour. He was familiar with fishing life on the north-east coast and no doubt savoured by this calm moment on the Isle of Wight.