Provenance:Sold: Cheffin's, Cambridge, England, November 24, 2005, Lot 679Richard Green Gallery, LondonAcquired from the abovePrivate Collection, FloridaLot note:Painted in 1840, the present view depicts Holy Island, also known as Lindisfarne, an island off the northeast coast of England. John Wilson Carmichael created a variety of such scenes, including one that was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1852. Here, Carmichael depicts John Strangeways Donaldson Selby leading a boating party at left as they ‘perambulate,’ or inspect and record boundaries and landmarks. While this practice was historically customary in Britain, the artist here infuses the scene with a certain spiritual quality, as evidenced by traces of a rainbow above Selby and his party at left. Carmichael was born in and regularly exhibited at Newcastle. As evidenced by the present work, he was a gifted marine painter who excelled in oils, as well as watercolors, going on to publish The Art of Marine painting in Water-Colours (1859) and The Art of Marine Painting in Oil-Colours (1864).