Object Description
A W. L. Wyllie Watercolour Sketch of the Battle of Jutland, Showing the Positions of HMS Calliope, Comus and Constance on the Night of the 31st of May 1916 with Important Reclaimed Comus Timber Frame
Provenance
Christie’s London, 22nd of November 1991, lot 12
Produced during Wyllie’s official tenure as a government accredited war artist, this watercolour sketch represents Wyllie’s attempt to capture for posterity the movements of three C Class light cruisers, Calliope, Comus and Constance on the night of the 1st of May during the Battle of Jutland. Wyllie was specifically encouraged to record movements of vessels and so the piece is both a work of art and a form of visual journalism, something that led to Wyllie’s involvement with the Illustrated London News. The watercolour is signed and dated 1917 but was presumably worked up from a drawing taken on the spot the year before during the heat of the battle.
The drawing is contained in a frame with an applied naval mural coronet and an easel fitting allowing it to be displayed on a table or hung on a wall. The frame itself was made from the reclaimed timber of the Comus, one of the three vessels portrayed in the image. Comus was scrapped in 1934 at the Thomas W. Ward shipbreaking yard in Barrow-in-Furness so the frame was obviously made for the picture at this time and adds significantly to the interest of the piece as a whole.
HMS Comus
Laid down in November of 1913 and launched in 1914, Comus was a part of the so-called Caroline class of light cruisers. She was built by Swan Hunter in their Wallsend yard. She first saw commissioned service in 1915. She was involved in the sinking of a German vessel in the North Sea in February of 1916 but it was at Jutland that she came in to her own. Captained by Alan Hotham, she sent information relating to the whereabouts of the German fleet at 8:40 pm on the 31st of May that proved crucial in determining the tactics for the rest of that evening, resulting in a significant victory. After the war Comus continued in active duty until 1924, before being recommissioned in late 1925. She continued to serve until permanently removed to the reserve in 1930, before being decommissioned in 1933 and sold for scrap the following year. According to Wikipedia, her specifications, as built, were as follows:
Class & type: C-class light cruiser
Displacement: 4,219 long tons (4,287 t)
Length: 446 ft (135.9 m) (o/a)
Beam: 41 ft 6 in (12.6 m)
Draught: 16 ft (4.9 m) (mean)
Installed power: 8 × Yarrow boilers / 40,000 shp (30,000 kW)
Propulsion: 2 × shafts; 2 × steam turbines
Speed: 28.5 knots (52.8 km/h; 32.8 mph)
Complement: 301
Armament: 2 × single 6 in (152 mm) guns / 8 × single 4 in (102 mm) guns / 1 × single 6 pdr (2.2 in (57 mm)) AA gun / 2 × twin 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes
Armour: Waterline belt: 1–3 in (25–76 mm) / Deck: 1 in (25 mm) / Conning tower: 6 in