Goodbye on the Mersey

This watercolour painting is a study for an oil painting of the same title which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1881. It is painted on a squared-up grid in white chalk and numbered in red chalk, for reproducing it on a larger scale in oil. There are two known oil versions, one of which is in the Andrew Lloyd Webber collection.

The watercolour shows a middle-class family saying goodbye to their relatives who are bound for America on a trans-Atlantic liner. The viewpoint is on the deck of a ‘tender’ craft. The skyline is confirmed (by Ian Murphy, MMM) as that of Liverpool in 1880. The work combines minutely observed contemporary costume and narrative drama with strong links to Liverpool and its maritime history. This is a study (remnants of squaring up remain) probably for a larger oil version that was exhibited at the Royal Academy and the Liverpool Autumn Exhibition (LAE) in 1881.