Signed 'David Cox' lower left and inscribed 'Sheerness'. This view is of the buildings of the Royal Dockyard at Sheerness in Kent, a subject painted by David Cox senior (1783-1859) in later life. There is, for example, a late watercolour view in the Medway by him also showing a hulk, in the Yale Center for British Art. However, although apparently made from life, this small watercolour lacks the breadth of handling of Cox's later work and is not painted on the rough textured paper he used at the time. The drawing is also not by his son David junior, also a water-colourist, and the 'David Cox' signature it bears is not authentic to either of them. All this suggests it is, at best a copy or imitation of Cox’s manner, for whatever reason. There is an outside possibility it might just be by someone, possibly a late 19th-century amateur, of the same name.