| Copper barques and Cape Horners
battled regularly through tempestuous seas to bring back ore to Swansea
from around the world. In their way they were as important as the industrialists
were when it came to Swansea’s development as a world-class centre
of metallurgy. Just as the men of importance were recorded for posterity
by the great portrait painters of the day so the ships were recorded by
a small group of highly skilled marine artists including James Harris Senior,
James Harris Junior and Edward Duncan. Specialist artists, like W.H.Yorke
of Liverpool, produced the detailed and highly stylised ship portraits much
prized by owners and masters. But Harris and co. captured the rigours of
life at sea. While the Reverend Calvert Richard Jones, a pioneer photographer,
used the newly developed calotype process to record the ships and their
crews in and around Swansea Harbour. |
