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The Lake District was ‘a watery paradise’ for mid-eighteenth-century ‘tourists’. The best view-finding experiences were water-borne. Local entrepreneurs hired out wooden barges – ‘wherries’ – which had been converted from the freight barges that carried cargoes of slate and copper ore on Coniston Water by the addition of ‘thwarts’ each seating three or four ‘tourists’. These wherries were rowed with two or three pairs of long sweeps (oars). The launch of the Furness Railway Company’s brand new passenger-carrying Steam Yacht 'Gondola', on 1 December 1859 at Coniston Old Hall, almost certainly inspired this nostalgic painting of Coniston’s redundant old wooden wherry. It’s even probable the Vicar painted on a panel from that old wherry.
The Ruskin Museum
Coniston
Title
The Launch of the First Gondola: Coniston Old Hall
Date
c.1859/1860
Medium
oil on board
Measurements
H 30 x W 64 cm
Accession number
2010.1
Acquisition method
purchased from the Hext Sale, Tennant's, Leyburn, 2010
Work type
Painting
