Embarkation

This painting seems to be a composite with some elements copied from source materials and others imagined. The ship was probably copied from one of RE's postcards - the Maella, a Norwegian full rigged ship from 1885. See the image below. We believe that the building in the painting may be based on the Lion Brewery that stood between Waterloo and Westminster bridges in Lambeth / Southwark, London. See the references below.

The rural scene in the background and the castle on the left are clearly not central London of course. The Lion Brewery was demolished in 1949 to make way for the Royal Festival Hall. The lion shown in the references now sits on a plinth at the end of Westminster Bridge.

The lion in RE's painting however is not an exact copy of the one on top of the brewery. The tail of RE's lion could not have been made in coade stone. It is more likely to have been inspired by the brass candlestick lion that used to sit in the family's dining room display cabinet. It had a rough patch on its head where the candle holder had been sawn off!