Oil painting on panel and now framed but probably originally set in panelling as part of a decorative scheme.

There is is a report and four small photos of similar tall panels, two with shipping scenes and two with landscapes, in the 'Illustrated London News' of 23 August 1958, p. 313, when these were on loan in an exhibition running to December that year at the Museum of English Rural Life at Reading. The explanatory caption reads: 'These four panels belong to a group of about twenty (mostly measuring 5 ft 4 ins by 2 ft) discovered and saved during the demolition of an eighteenth-century coaching in, formerly in the Market Square, at Bromley. They are believed to be of the early eighteenth century...'. There were in fact about 16 of these panels, including landscape and decorative ones, and the name of the inn from 1743 was 'The Bull': they are in the collection at Bromley Museum and a very worn and smaller format one, apparently from the same group (which does include at least one of 'normal' proportion) is at Compton Verney in the Edith Marx collection, wrongly attributed to Isaac Sailmaker. Comparisons have yet to be properly made to see whether there is any possibility of all being by the same hand. The basis for the NMM ones being attributed to Swaine is also not claer, but all are of similar type and period and it is reasonable to conclude that the NMM ones were probably done for similar 'interior decoration' set in panelling. See also BHC1074 and BHC2234, the other two of the set. The imperial dimensions of the NMM trio are 5ft x 30-33 ins (approx) so a little smaller than the main ones of the Bromley set. [PvdM 11/14].