Wreck Reef

William Westall made a number of drawings of Wreck Reef.

1. Pencil sketch of sailors in a boat. This sketch 10 x 6 ½ ins is inscribed ‘Boat’s crew picking up stragglers after the wreck of the Porpoise on a coral reef off the N.E. Coast of Australia’

2. Finished watercolour, 16 ½ x 10 ¾ ins of this scene with the boat in the foreground and another small vessel being rowed nearby. In the background is the Cato, almost sunk, and the Porpoise on its side.

3. Pencil sketch on flat wash, 8 5/8 x 6 3/8 ins inscribed ‘Ideal View of Wreck Reef – W.Westall’. This aerial or ‘birds eye’ view, with the sandbank in the foreground, Cato almost sunk and the Porpoise on its side. Tents, shelters and a fire are visible on the Reef.

4. Oil painting 33 ¾ x 23 ½ ins of ‘Wreck Reef Bank Taken at Low Water’. The Reef is seen from a short distance on a nearby sandbank, showing coral. Several tents of varying sizes are seen with other shelters. A distress flag is flying and Porpoise is on its side (far left in a different location to other paintings). An engraving of the above 9 x 6 ¼ ins, engraved by Pye is in Flinders’ account of the Voyage.

A very similar view of the above in watercolour 16 ¼ x 11 ins with the flag drooping and some minor differences was sold by Christie’s, London 14/10/77 for £2800 by my great aunt Mary McNab Lester. It can be seen on my blog www.westallart.blogspot.com as can Jorgenson’s imagined view.

5. Pencil sketch 10 ¾ x 14 ½ ‘Shipwreck, Wreck Reef (1803)’. It shows Porpoise on its side taken from a sandbank, with two figures right and an illustration, probably a pencil sketch for 4 above.

References for ‘Breakers ahead!’ (Nat Library of Australia Magazine June 2011). Unfortunately the final illustration for this article is an engraving of Fountains Abbey, Yorkshire – drawn and engraved by William Westall not A Hong Kong Merchants Garden. This illustration will be in the next issue of the Magazine.

James Stanier Clarke ‘Naufragia’ ii p.385.

Robert Thynne ‘Captain Flinders’ Explorations and Adventures’ (John Hogg, London nd) pp77/8.

Ernestine Hill ‘My Love Must Wait’ (Angus and Robertson, Sydney April 1949 edition) p. 274.

Matthew ‘Voyage to Terra Australis’ vol ii p 305.

Robert Westall ‘Sketch of the Life of the Late William Westall A.R.A.’. MS author’s collection. Published with alterations and additions ‘Art Journal’ April 1850 pp 94/95. A typescript of the full MS with notes of alterations is on my blog.

Sarah Bakewell ‘The English Dane’ (Chatto & Windus, London 2005). p. 249 and note p 291

William Westall to Sir Joseph Banks see G. Barton ‘History of New South Wales’ vol I pp lxiii.

.

Illustrations:

1. View of Wreck Reef Bank Taken at Low Water pencil & wash.


2. Shipwreck, Wreck Reef Pencil 10 ¾ x 14 ½ (courtesy of Anthony Spink)


3. A Hong Kong Merchant’s Garden watercolour (courtesy of Martyn Gregory)


4. View in China (private collection)