Graham Jowett-Ive 1946–2012 Battle of St Vincent Nelson’s Bridge RSMA Exhibited Naval Oil c2005
Graham Jowett-Ive (1946–2012) Battle of St Vincent Nelson’s Bridge RSMA Exhibited Naval Oil 2005
An important large British historical marine oil depicting Nelson’s celebrated action during the Battle of Cape St Vincent on 14 February 1797.
Exhibited with the Royal Society of Marine Artists at The Mall Galleries in 2005, retaining its original exhibition label and accompanied by the artist’s handwritten letter and original preparatory pencil sketch.
Highlights
• Original large-scale historical marine oil by Graham Jowett-Ive (1946–2012).
• Signed and dated “Jowett-Ive 05”.
• Original documented exhibition title: Battle of St Vincent. Nelson’s Bridge.
• Oil on canvas, painted in 2005.
• Exhibited with the Royal Society of Marine Artists at The Mall Galleries, London, in 2005.
• Original 2005 RSMA / Mall Galleries exhibition label retained verso.
• Original exhibition price recorded as £750.
• Accompanied by Graham Jowett-Ive’s handwritten letter to the original purchaser, dated 3 November 2005.
• The artist’s letter directly confirms that the purchaser had acquired the painting exhibited at that year’s RSMA show.
• Accompanied by Jowett-Ive’s original preparatory pencil sketch for this painting.
• The artist explicitly identifies the drawing as “the sketch from which your painting developed”.
• The artist records in his letter that the Alexander Gallery, Bristol, then had several of his paintings on display, which he described as works celebrating “the sea, or rather Nelson on the sea!”
• Historical subject: Battle of Cape St Vincent, 14 February 1797.
• Closely associated with Nelson’s celebrated capture of the Spanish San Nicolás and San Josef and the exploit remembered as “Nelson’s Patent Bridge for boarding first rates”.
• Subsequently offered by Littleton Auctions, Evesham, 1 August 2026, Lot 306, together with the corresponding letter and original pencil sketch.
• Privately loaned and exhibited with the Famous Lord Hill Museum.
• Recently reframed and ready to display.
• Supplied with a Certificate of Sale & Dealer Attribution issued by Cheshire Antiques Consultant LTD®.
Introduction
Cheshire Antiques Consultant LTD® is delighted to present this exceptionally well-documented large British historical marine oil painting by Graham Jowett-Ive (1946–2012), painted in 2005 and depicting the celebrated naval action of Horatio Nelson during the Battle of Cape St Vincent.
The work combines imposing scale and dramatic naval subject matter with an unusually rich body of surviving primary documentation.
Attached verso is the painting’s original 2005 Royal Society of Marine Artists exhibition label from The Mall Galleries, London. It records Graham Jowett-Ive as the artist, the medium as oil, the original exhibition price of £750 and, crucially, the title:
Battle of St Vincent. Nelson’s Bridge
Even more significantly, the painting is accompanied by Jowett-Ive’s handwritten letter to its original purchaser, Mr E. Joll of Lower Swainswick House, Bath, dated 3 November 2005, together with the artist’s original preparatory pencil sketch.
The letter provides direct contemporary evidence linking the artist, painting, exhibition, purchaser and preparatory drawing.
Catalogue Details
Artist: Graham Jowett-Ive (British, 1946–2012)
Title: Battle of St Vincent. Nelson’s Bridge
Date: 2005
Medium: Oil on canvas
Signature: Signed and dated “Jowett-Ive 05”
Subject: Battle of Cape St Vincent, 14 February 1797
Exhibition: Royal Society of Marine Artists, The Mall Galleries, London, 2005
Original Exhibition Price: £750
Visible Canvas / Image Area: 92 cm wide × 62.5 cm high
Overall Framed Dimensions: 109 cm wide × 79 cm high × 2.5 cm deep
Frame: Recently reframed
Accompanying Archival Material: Original preparatory pencil sketch and handwritten letter from Graham Jowett-Ive dated 3 November 2005
Catalogue Note
Jowett-Ive presents the engagement as an expansive panorama of British and Spanish sailing warships locked in close action.
A substantial British warship occupies the left of the composition while imposing Spanish vessels dominate the central and right-hand groups. Their distinctive red-and-yellow colours punctuate the predominantly blue, white and ochre palette.
Towering masts and complex rigging rise against a luminous maritime sky while cannon smoke drifts between the opposing ships. Shot striking the sea, breaking water and partially obscured vessels reinforce the confusion and violence of battle.
The artist has treated the episode as a broad historical reconstruction rather than a diagrammatic representation of a single instant. Individual vessels beyond those central to the documented historical episode should therefore not be identified without further evidence.
The original exhibition label is particularly important to the painting’s identification.
When the work subsequently appeared at Littleton Auctions in 2026, it was catalogued as a Battle of Trafalgar, 1805. That later description differs from the surviving contemporary documentation.
The original 2005 exhibition label explicitly identifies the work as Battle of St Vincent. Nelson’s Bridge, while Jowett-Ive’s contemporary letter independently confirms that the recipient had purchased his painting exhibited at that year’s RSMA show.
The present catalogue therefore restores and retains the documented 2005 exhibition title.
The Battle of Cape St Vincent
The Battle of Cape St Vincent was fought on 14 February 1797 during the French Revolutionary Wars.
A British fleet commanded by Admiral Sir John Jervis encountered a substantially larger Spanish force off the south-western coast of Portugal.
Horatio Nelson, then a commodore commanding the 74-gun HMS Captain, played an audacious role in the action. Breaking from the conventional British line, Nelson placed Captain across the path of part of the Spanish fleet and became heavily engaged against superior opposition.
The action culminated in one of the most celebrated boarding episodes in British naval history.
Nelson’s Bridge
During the fighting, Nelson’s Captain became closely engaged with the Spanish San Nicolás.
Nelson led a boarding party onto San Nicolás and captured her. During the action, San Nicolás became entangled with the substantially larger Spanish San Josef.
Nelson immediately exploited the situation.
Rather than returning to his own ship, he and his men proceeded from the captured San Nicolás directly onto San Josefand captured the second Spanish vessel.
The extraordinary manoeuvre became celebrated as “Nelson’s Patent Bridge for boarding first rates.”
The subtitle Nelson’s Bridge on Jowett-Ive’s original exhibition label therefore has a precise historical meaning and strongly supports the identification of the painting as the Battle of Cape St Vincent rather than Trafalgar.
The Original Preparatory Sketch
An especially important feature of the work is the survival of Jowett-Ive’s original pencil study.
Executed rapidly in pencil, the drawing establishes the developing maritime composition: the principal concentration of sailing vessels, their masts and hulls, the horizon and the overall distribution of the naval action.
The relationship between drawing and painting does not depend upon visual comparison alone.
Jowett-Ive himself identifies it.
In his letter dated 3 November 2005, the artist tells Mr Joll:
“I enclose the sketch from which your painting developed…”
The drawing can therefore be confidently catalogued as the original preparatory pencil sketch for Battle of St Vincent. Nelson’s Bridge rather than merely an associated maritime drawing.
The survival of both study and finished oil provides an unusually direct insight into Jowett-Ive’s working process.
The Artist’s 2005 Letter
The handwritten letter accompanying the painting constitutes important primary evidence for both the work and the artist’s biography.
Writing on 3 November 2005, Jowett-Ive states that he had been notified by the RSMA that Mr Joll had purchased his painting exhibited at that year’s show.
This provides direct artist-authored confirmation of the painting’s exhibition and first documented purchase.
The letter also provides an unusually personal account of Jowett-Ive’s development as an artist.
He explains that although he had sketched throughout his life, he had been painting for approximately eleven years.
Following an accident which left him severely disabled, painting initially became therapeutic: a means of helping to get his fingers working and of keeping his mind occupied.
This places the beginning of his serious painting practice at approximately 1994.
Jowett-Ive further records that his main residence was in Bristol, but that following his accident he spent much of his time in Devon, writing memorably that he needed:
“a daily dose of the sea.”
The letter therefore provides a compelling first-person explanation for the importance of maritime imagery within his work.
The Artist
Graham Jowett-Ive (1946–2012) was a British painter particularly associated with marine, naval and historical subjects.
Published auction records consistently give his dates as 1946–2012. No reliable evidence of formal art-school education or a named artistic teacher has presently been identified.
His own 2005 letter instead describes a largely self-directed development: lifelong sketching followed by serious painting after his disabling accident.
The sea subsequently became central to his work.
In November 2005 Jowett-Ive recorded that the Alexander Gallery in Bristol had several of his paintings on display. Characteristically, he described them as works:
“all celebrating the sea, or rather Nelson on the sea!”
This statement is particularly relevant to the present work because it places Battle of St Vincent. Nelson’s Bridge within a documented period of concentrated interest in Nelson and historical naval subjects.
Surviving auction records reinforce that picture of his oeuvre. Recorded works include Atlantic Fleet, signed and dated 2000, together with a pair of French Napoleonic battleships at sea, dated 2004, and other historical maritime and military compositions.
The present painting therefore belongs naturally within an established strand of Jowett-Ive’s work rather than representing an isolated naval subject.
The Alexander Gallery, Bristol
Jowett-Ive’s reference to the Alexander Gallery is an important contemporary biographical detail.
The gallery operated at 122 Whiteladies Road, Clifton, Bristol, and had an established history of displaying and dealing in British paintings.
Jowett-Ive’s letter establishes that a number of his works were on display there in November 2005.
There is presently insufficient documentary evidence to describe him as formally represented by the gallery or to describe this display as a named solo exhibition. The more precise catalogue wording is therefore that the artist recorded several of his paintings as being on display at the Alexander Gallery, Bristol, in 2005.
Royal Society of Marine Artists & The Mall Galleries
The Royal Society of Marine Artists was founded as the Society of Marine Artists in 1939 and was granted royal status in 1966.
Its annual exhibitions have been held at The Mall Galleries, London, since 1981.
The Society’s annual exhibition includes selected works submitted by non-members alongside works by elected members.
Accordingly, the surviving documentation firmly establishes that Graham Jowett-Ive exhibited with the Royal Society of Marine Artists in 2005.
It does not, on the evidence presently available, establish that he was an elected member of the Society. For that reason the post-nominal RSMA should not be placed after his name.
The original label retained with the present painting records:
Exhibition: RS Marine Artists
Venue: The Mall Galleries
Year: 2005
Title: Battle of St Vincent. Nelson’s Bridge
Artist: Graham Jowett-Ive
Medium: Oil
Price: £750
Together with the artist’s letter, this constitutes particularly strong contemporary evidence for the painting’s exhibition history.
Provenance & Exhibition History
• Graham Jowett-Ive (1946–2012), the artist.
• Royal Society of Marine Artists, The Mall Galleries, London, 2005, exhibited as Battle of St Vincent. Nelson’s Bridge, with an exhibition price of £750.
• Mr E. Joll, Lower Swainswick House, Bath, acquired from the above exhibition in 2005; the purchase is confirmed by Jowett-Ive’s handwritten letter dated 3 November 2005.
• Accompanied by the artist’s original preparatory pencil sketch, expressly identified by Jowett-Ive as the sketch from which the painting developed.
• Intervening ownership presently unrecorded.
• Littleton Auctions, Evesham, Worcestershire, 1 August 2026, Lot 306, offered together with the corresponding artist’s letter and original pencil sketch; catalogued at that time as Battle of Trafalgar, 1805.
• Acquired and subsequently researched and catalogued by Cheshire Antiques Consultant LTD®, 2026.
• Privately loaned and exhibited with the Famous Lord Hill Museum.
Documentary Chain
The painting, letter and preparatory sketch remained associated when the work appeared at Littleton Auctions.
Subsequent correspondence concerning collection provides additional documentary continuity: Littleton confirmed that the letter and sketch were with the painting when collected and had deliberately been kept together.
The courier subsequently explained that the documentary material had been placed safely in the vehicle and was inadvertently omitted when the painting itself was delivered, after which arrangements were made for its return.
This correspondence is retained within the artwork’s research file and provides additional evidence connecting the accompanying archive with Littleton Lot 306.
Dimensions
Visible Canvas / Image Area:
92 cm wide × 62.5 cm high
Overall Framed Dimensions:
109 cm wide × 79 cm high × 2.5 cm deep
The painting has been recently reframed.
Littleton Auctions previously recorded an approximate image size of 98 × 69 cm. The dimensions above were subsequently measured following reframing and are used for the present catalogue record.
Frame and Presentation
Presented in a recently fitted frame selected to complement the broad historical marine composition.
The painting is ready to hang and display.
The frame is a recent presentation element and is not represented as original to the painting.
Condition Report
The painting presents attractively overall with strong colour, clarity and visual impact.
The painted surface displays minor age-related marks and scattered spotting consistent with the work’s history.
The reverse of the canvas shows widespread brown spotting and areas of age-related discolouration.
These observations are descriptive only. The cause of the spotting has not been established by specialist conservation examination and it is therefore not represented as mould, foxing or any other specific condition without further analysis.
The canvas remains mounted upon its wooden stretcher/support.
The important original 2005 RSMA / Mall Galleries exhibition label remains preserved verso.
The painting has recently been reframed and is ready for display.
This condition report records observations made during catalogue preparation and should be read together with the complete photographic record.
Worldwide Shipping
Worldwide delivery is available.
Cheshire Antiques Consultant LTD® has extensive experience in professionally packing and arranging the international delivery of fine art and historic works of art.
The painting will be carefully protected and professionally packed for transit.
International deliveries are normally arranged using a fully tracked courier service. Import duties, customs charges and local taxes, where applicable, remain the responsibility of the buyer.
Please contact us for further information regarding delivery to your destination.
Certificate of Sale & Dealer Attribution
The artwork will be supplied with a Certificate of Sale & Dealer Attribution issued by Cheshire Antiques Consultant LTD®, recording the artwork’s catalogue details, artist, title, date, medium, dimensions, provenance as stated and details of the sale.
The certificate accompanies the work as part of its continuing ownership and provenance record.
The original Graham Jowett-Ive letter and preparatory pencil sketch also accompany the painting and should remain with it as integral elements of its documentary archive.
Attribution and Research
The historical observations, provenance research, subject identification and contextual commentary presented within this catalogue represent the professional opinion of Cheshire Antiques Consultant LTD®.
They are offered in good faith as informed scholarly assessments based upon the physical artwork, surviving primary documentation, comparative research, published reference material and our experience within the international fine art market.
The surviving 2005 exhibition label and Jowett-Ive’s contemporary correspondence provide the principal documentary evidence for the title Battle of St Vincent. Nelson’s Bridge, the painting’s exhibition history and the relationship between the finished oil and accompanying preparatory drawing.
The individual identification of vessels within Jowett-Ive’s wider composition is intentionally treated cautiously unless supported by documentary or compelling visual evidence.
These observations should be understood as professional assessments rather than guarantees of historical interpretation. Future documentary discoveries, archival research or specialist examination may refine, expand or revise aspects of the present catalogue.
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