Boat Gallery

Henry Scott Tuke's French brigantine 'Julie of Nantes' at the Mill Dam, Falmouth, Cornwall. Around 1886

The artist, Henry Scott Tuke (1858-1929), purchased Julie of Nantes in 1886 for use as a floating studio. It is thought that he can be seen standing at the bow of the ship. Henry Scott Tuke was born into a Quaker family in Lawrence Street, York. In 1859 the family moved to Falmouth, where his father Daniel Tuke, a physician, established a practice. Tuke was encouraged to draw and paint from an early age and some of his earliest drawings, aged four or five years old, were published in 1895. In 1875, he enrolled in the Slade School of Art. Initially his father paid for his tuition but in 1877 Tuke won a scholarship, which allowed him to continue his training at the Slade and in Italy in 1880. From 1881 to 1883 he was in Paris where he met the artist Jules Bastien-Lepage, who encouraged him to paint en plein air (in the open air) a method of working that came to dominate his practice. While studying in France, Tuke decided to move to Newlyn Cornwall where many of his Slade and Parisian friends had already formed the Newlyn School of painters. He received several lucrative commissions there, after exhibiting his work at the Royal Academy of Art in London. In 1885, he returned to Falmouth where many of his major works were produced. He became an established artist and was elected to full membership of the Royal Academy in 1914. Tuke suffered a heart attack in 1928 and died in March 1929. In his will he left generous amounts of money to some of the men who, as boys, had been his models. Today he is remembered mainly for his oil paintings of young men, but in addition to his achievements as a figurative painter, he was an established maritime artist and produced as many portraits of sailing ships as he did human figures. He was a prolific artist, over 1,300 works are listed and more are still being discovered. Photographer: Unknown.

© From the collection of the RIC

Fowey to Polruan Ferry, Fowey, Cornwall. January 1993

Paul Toms at the helm of the Fowey to Polruan ferry, which has been bought by his father Allen Toms who owns Toms Boatyard in Polruan. The ferry was motorised just before the First World War but can be dated back to the 16th century when a rowing boat plied the route. This purchase by the Toms family means that they own both ferries across Fowey harbour, for they've owned the Bodinnick car ferry, half a mile upriver, since 1975. Photographer: Jonathan Barker .

© RIC, photographer Jonathan Barker

Major Gill's wife Henrietta Mabel (nee Dobel) on the cliff above Prussia Cove, St Hilary, Cornwall. Around 1925

Prussia Cove is named after a smuggler, John Carter, who referred to himself as the 'King of Prussia'. Glass lantern slide from a lecture, entitled 'Some Historic Cornish Beauty Spots', given by Cornishman and amateur photographer, Major Arthur William Gill, in around 1925. He was well known in Cornwall and elsewhere during the 1920s and 1930s for his presentations of stills and cine film to many groups including The Royal Institution of Cornwall, Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society and the London Cornish Society. The quarter plate slides which he took prolifically with his 'ordinary camera' are, in many cases, colour. These were painted by his own hand to great effect.

© From the collection of the RIC