John Thomas Serres (1759 - 1825)
RA Collection: Art
A pen and ink drawing of ships in rough seas with a coastline in the background. This was drawn while Serres was Marine Draughtsman to the Admiralty (appointed 1800). Around this time, travelling with the Navy, he made drawings of the west coasts of France and Spain and was also a drawing instructor at Chelsea Naval School in London. Serres was the son of the marine painter Dominic Serres and was trained by his father. He evenutally inherited some of his father's posts and commissions.
This work comes from one of sixteen volumes of Royal Academy Annual Exhibition catalogues that were collected and extra-illustrated by the lawyer and antiquarian Edward Basil Jupp F.S.A. (1812 - 1877). The catalogues span the period from the first annual exhibition in 1769 up to 1875. Jupp added drawings, prints, letters and autographs by, or referring to, Academicians and other exhibitors at the Academy's annual exhibition.
E.B. Jupp was a solicitor who married Eliza Kay, daughter of the architect William Porden Kay. He was a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and a clerk of the Carpenters' Company, of which he published a history. Jupp amassed a large collection of paintings by British and Dutch artists, drawings, prints, books and porcelain most of which was sold after his death, at Christie's in February 1878.
Many of the drawings in Jupp's Royal Academy extra-illustrated volumes were bought from art sales during the 1860s. He was also acquainted with a number of contemporary artists and several drawings in the later volumes (along with many of the letters and autographs) were sent from the artists themselves.
124 mm x 182 mm