'The Screen'

Inscribed 'The Screen' and signed by the artist, lower right. It is also faintly inscribed with a previous note 'the Screen' lower left. This drawing was reproduced in Wyllie and M.F. Wren's 'Sea Fights of the Great War' (1918) f. p. 34. The vessel seen closest here, bow-on, is an early 'Flower'-class 'Fleet Sweeping Sloop' as they were officially called (i.e. a minesweeper), of the twin-funnelled type: 72 of them were built in 1915-16. The tripod and foretop visible on the left belong to a battleship. The other vessels are not identifiable. This type of specifically titled drawing may have been intended for reproduction to celebrate the essential smaller ships of the fleet, whose work protected the larger ones adn the fact that it has been inscribed twise - once provisionally and later more firmly, and signed, suggests tyat Wyllie finally found a use for it in his 1918 book, though he may well have done it earlier and more speculatively.

Object Details

ID: PAE3129
Collection: Fine art
Type: Drawing
Display location: Not on display
Creator: Wyllie, William Lionel
Date made: circa 1918; circa 1915-16 1915-18 1915-1918
Credit: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, Caird Collection
Measurements: 298 mm x 234 mm