A Pair:
WI35 St. Thomas, Watercolour, 27 x 37.5 centimetres
V13 Sail rock off St. Thomas – bearing SW. bearing three miles, Pencil, 13 x 19 centimetres



Named after the Queen of Denmark in 1692, the bustling Port Charlotte Amalie became the capital of the Virgin Islands. It is celebrated as one of the finest natural harbours in the Caribbean and became the principle shipping centre and distributing point for the West Indies after it was made a free port in 1815. This watercolour brings to life the thriving cosmopolitan atmosphere of the harbour, with grand residences set into the hillside and various galleons and trading boats bearing a multitude of international flags. Of the 14,000 inhabitants of this flourishing island, only some 2,500 gained their living from plantations. Unlike St. Thomas’s sister island, St. Croix, where plantation life was the norm, a substantial segment of freed slaves worked as clerks, shop keepers and artisans. It was on St. Croix in 1848 that the slave revolt began which prompted the abolition of slavery in the Danish West Indies.