HMS QUEEN ELIZABETH. Downstream of the Forth Bridge

Frank Watson Wood (1862-1953). Watercolour signed, dated 1922 and annotated "Sunset after Fog".

HMS QUEEN ELIZABETH. Downstream of the Forth Bridge

Standard size: 8 x 23 ins (20 x 58.5 cms) approx.

Price is available upon request

This original has been sold and is no longer available.

Prints of this may be available on: Maritime Prints.

HMS QUEEN ELIZABETH (Captain Geoffrey Blake DSO RN), flagship of the Commander-in-Chief Atlantic Fleet (Admiral Sir John de Robeck Bt GCB GCMG) is painted here by Frank Wood in a painting he has entitled "Sunset after Fog", just downstream of the Forth Bridge in the autumn of 1922. Over to the left are the destroyer pens of Port Edgar; and to the right of the painting a D Class light cruiser inches cautiously past the fleet flagship on her way up into the dockyard of Rosyth.

”Just occasionally” said Archibald in his definitive book on battleships “a ship is designed and built which, taken overall, is of such an essential rightness that she must be forever remembered as the classic of her type. Such a one was QUEEN ELIZABETH: she represented the ultimate expression of the Dreadnought type, with beautiful balanced graceful profile, superior speed, superior armament and protection…”

Frank Wood was born in Berwick-on-Tweed in 1862 and after an early career teaching in the Borders he moved to the Portsmouth area early in the new century and started his second and greatly longer lasting career for he was to continue painting well into his 80’s.