Composition

This sketch is closely related to the lithograph Churchyard c021.

The tentative pencil sketches of Queen Victoria's Naval Review in 1887 are not studies for the etchings, though some – Troopships [307] and The Turret Ship [305] for instance – also show the naval ships in the distance.

Technique

The off-white (browned) canvas covered sketchbook, with a pencil holder, originally contained 82 sides of cream wove paper. Some of these have been removed. The paper has a fine grain running the length of the paper and, at a slight diagonal, a wider spaced, ripply grain.

Most of the drawings are in pencil, but one Dutch scene was drawn in sharply defined pen and ink, and there are several tiny, expressively painted, watercolours, also of the Netherlands. A few, such as the watercolour above, are signed with a butterfly.