William Marlow (London 1740-1813 Twickenham)

We are grateful to Professor Michael Liversidge, University of Bristol, for confirming the attribution to Marlow. He has noted that the painting may be based on a study made either when Marlow sailed from Dover across the Channel on his way to the Continent for his tour of France and Italy in 1765, or when he returned from the tour in 1766. He dates the painting to the late 1760s or 1770s.

An indistinct old inscription on the reverse ending '...land' may have read 'South Foreland', a chalk headland beside St. Margaret's Bay, three miles northeast of Dover on the Kent coast, and the closest point on the British mainland to Continental Europe.