Bronze Age Gold from Wales

Port side view of the S.S. MADRAS CITY at sea. Signed and dated bottom left.

This painting was donated to the museum by Mr Graham Davies of Drope, Cardiff in 1988, and is unique in the collections as it was actually painted for Mr Davies at the Surrey Docks, London in 1954 whilst he was a crew member aboard the Madras City. Mr Davies recalls "during the afternoon I noticed a man on the dockside with a board sketching the ship, and I went to see him at close hand. He (Mr Crane) was a man of about sixty years of age, medium height, thin build and silver hair. It turned out that he painted ships commercially for some £3 to £5. He took his sketches home and returned the following day with the completed painting. I believe that there were possibly one or maybe two other crew members collecting pictures when he returned the following day as I went to collect mine".

S.S. MADRAS CITY. Completed in 1940 by the Furness Shipbuilding Co. Ltd, Haverton Hill for the Reardon Smith Line of Cardiff. She was sold to Pakistani owners in 1958 and broken up at Karachi in 1971.