Image Not Available

ERSKINE

Maker Arthur Victor Gregory (1867 - 1957)

Date1923

Object number00031843

NamePainting

MediumWatercolour, gouache

DimensionsSight: 422 x 646 mm
Overall: 515 x 736 mm, 3.98 kg

ClassificationsArt

Credit LineANMM Collection

Terms

Bass Strait

DescriptionA painting by Arthur Victor Gregory of the ERSKINE at sea. HistoryAccording to the donor of the Arthur Gregory painting David Wright, the ERSKINE was owned by his grandfather Captain James Shaw. Shaw was born in Laidley, Queensland and went to New Zealand with his parents in infancy. He ran away to sea three times before being allowed to make a career of it. Shaw went to Port Moresby as harbour master in about 1913 at which time Dorothy Shaw (David Wright's mother) was a baby. The Shaws were in Port Moresby for seven or eight years. Captain Shaw later went to Melbourne where he owned a shipyard and several ships which worked in the Bass Strait trade carrying mainly timber. His other ships were named WAIMANA, DOROTHY (after David Wright's mother), and CICADA which caught fire and sank in Port Phillip bay. The Register of Australian and New Zealand Shipping for 1924-1925 lists the wooden ketch ERSKINE ,89 gross tonnage and measuring 88.8 by 23 by 7.2 feet, built at Geelong in 1922 and registered in Melbourne. However it lists the owners as Lorne Sawmills Pty Ltd. It may be that Captain Shaw was a principal of Lorne Sawmills,or it may be that he was not the owne rbut was associated with the vessel in some other way. The 1929 issue of the Register still lists the ship as owned by Lorne Sawmills. Arthur Victor Gregory (1867-1957) was the third son of George Frederick Gregory senior, from his second marriage. He took over his father's Gregory Studios in South Melbourne and worked there as a marine painter from the late nineteenth century. He died in Melbourne in 1957. Arthur began taking commissions for ship portraits as a boy. His reputation had been established in Melbourne by the early 1880's and he continued producing ship portraits in great numbers for the next 50 years.SignificanceThe vessel ERSKINE, owned by Captain James Shaw, is representative of the dangerous and historic Bass Strait trade.