James Webb - Carthagena Bay

Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium: 18,750 GBP

76 by 127cm., 30 by 50in.

signed and dated l.r.: James Webb 1871


oil on canvas

Carthagena (or Cartagena) is a walled town and harbour on the Spanish coast in the southeast of the Iberian Peninsula in the region of Murcia. It has been one of Spain's most important naval ports since the sixteenth century and in the eighteenth century, with the arrival of the Spanish Bourbons, it became the capital of the Spanish navy.

In 1874 James Webb painted two views of Carthagena from the foreshore in front of the Castillo de las Galeras looking towards Castillo de San Julian (Royal Holloway College and Shipley Art Gallery in Gateshead). It was the larger of the two pictures, now at the Royal Holloway College, that was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1874. Another view of Carthagena by Webb is dated 1875 (Christie's, 15 November 2007, lot 60) and he painted another in 1881 (Christie's, 14 June 1991, lot 214).