LIGHT SHIP SMITH'S KNOLL-A FINE WATERCOLOUR BY RICHARD HOBSON

Light Ship Smith's Knoll- Richard Hobson

This large and impressive 1975 watercolour by Richard Hobson was sold by Anderson &Garland in their Newcastle rooms on 21 March 2017. If I remember  rightly the estimate was somewhere near £1000/£1200 . The hammer price was in fact £4000- and well deserved it was.This is surely one of Hobson's finest watercolours- and for that reason is interesting-let alone the unusual subject.

I have added -with apologies to Trinity House-a photograph of the actual lightship which apparently dates from 1972. At the time they were checking out the possibility of a helicopter platform for delivering crew to the lightship.But if the photo is correctly dated 1972 and the watercolour is correctly dated 1975 then what happened to the platform shown at the after end if the vessel-but not in Richard's watercolour? In the watercolour the ship clearly has a mast and not a platform.Was the experiment a failure or is the artwork misdated to 1975when it should be 1972? And this watercolour perhaps shows the ship in dock and ready for maintenance?

Lightship "Smith's Knoll" with helicopter practising  lowering crew members.