Company Treasures

Browse the extensive collection of Shipwrights' treasures collected over the years.

Oil on Canvas Shipwrights’ Arms

Oil on Canvas Shipwrights’ Arms

Commissioned by the Company 1782, and based on the Shipwrights’ Arms, that is the arms of the former  Company of Shipwrights of Redriff, but with the notable differences that the hull is of an 18th. century  ship of the line with flags flying, and that there are supporters (two shipwrights). The date 1380 appears below the crest: this was apparently the year then thought to be the date of the founding of the Company, though there is evidence to suggest C1190  or  C1260 to be more  likely.

The painting originally hung in the London Tavern.  Then, after hanging in the Jerusalem Coffee House (the predecessor of the Baltic Exchange) for many years, it was in 1876 again recorded as hanging in the London Tavern.  It later came into the  possession of Lt.Col. A.B. Cook, JP, Master 1891-1892,  and was in 1894 given by him back to the Company.  At that time it was unframed and it was deposited at Guildhall for safe keeping. It now hangs in the Shipwrights’ Clerk’s office at Ironmongers’ Hall and at  Company dinners in the Hall is mounted behind the Prime Warden’s chair, beneath the Ironmongers’ Arms which are permanently in situ.

Painted in oil on canvas, 1782; restored and reframed  by J. Sebastian of London in 1979.

(005/1782)

Find more Paintings, Engravings & Prints

Alternatively go back to All Treasures