Naval ship drawings for sale at Auction William Frederick Mitchell

A Stunning Collection of approx. 360

Write up on Mitchell drawings for PR.

NAVAL DRAWINGS / PRINTS (Printers Proofs) and WATER COLOURS

Naval Ships, destroyers, cruisers and other Vessels pre WW1

By the celebrated artist
William Frederick Mitchell (1845-1914) are coming up fpr Sale at Dominic Winter Auctions on 11th November.
William Frederick Mitchell (Calshot, 1845–1914, Ryde, Isle of Wight) was a British artist commissioned to paint many naval and merchant ships.

Although his output spanned c1880 through to his death, this particular selection cover in the main 1890 – 1910, so interestingly cover sail/early steam and their subsequent full steam ‘steel’ ships replacements. In addition to the British Naval ships, there is an interesting selection of Brazilian, German (including Scharnhorst) and Japanese Battleships, that passed through Portsmouth at that time. Some drawings of D1 the first trial submarine may well be unique.

Mitchell’s collected works were originally published in The Royal Navy in a series of illustrations. Many are in the National Maritime Museum Collection in Greenwich, England. Mitchell lived most of his life near Portsmouth and painted pictures of Royal Navy and merchant ships for their officers and owners. He also illustrated Brassey’s Naval Annual. Mitchell’s works are numbered and run to more than 3,500. His medium was principally watercolour but he painted some oils as well.

Mitchell wrote a short autobiography for the 1904 May/June issue of The Messenger, a magazine for deaf people, in which he describes how scarlet fever deprived him of his hearing but at home his father, an HM Coastguard stationed at Calshot Castle, taught him to speak. The autobiography relates his move to Ryde on the Isle of Wight, shortly after marriage to Miss Woodman in 1881. It also claims Queen Victoria, Edward, Prince of Wales, the German Emperor and the Grand Duke Michael Mikhailovich of Russia among Mitchell’s patrons.