Working Sail Stamps

These Royal Mail stamps were affixed to specially designed envelopes and postmarked on the first day that the stamps were issued.

18.02.2015 | Old Salt and Young Boy, Postmarked at Birmingham

sold out View FDCs for this issue Working Sail, Old Salt and Young Boy Working Sail, Old Salt and Young Boy
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43169
18th February 2015 - Working Sail
Stamp Type:
Stamp Details:
1st Falcon (Pilot Boat) ...      ▼ expand stamp details ▼
1st Briar (Heritage Drifter)
1st Harry (Humber Sloop)
1st Margaret (Fifie)
1st Stag (Grimsby Smack)
1st Nell Morgan (Smack)
Producer/Series:   ( BFDC No 303 )
Postmark:
Birmingham, Quayside, Special Handstamp
Limited Edition: 60 copies Worldwide.
Notes: These covers are hand made from the finest quality linen textured paper. Over the centuries, the beauty of sailing ships inspired innumerable grand paintings, including enormous seascapes and complex battle scenes – but it is the work of folk artists who painted on a more humble scale, observing ships as they came into the port, that has captured for posterity many types of traditional merchant and fishing vessels in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These artists, often collectively known as the ‘pierhead’ painters, would seek commissions among the owners and crew of a ship in port. They would sketch from life and produce portraits of the vessel before the ship sailed again, usually within days. The typical portrait was a broadside view of the vessel at sea or leaving harbour, with details added in the background to help identify the location. Pierhead painting forms a distinct genre of popular, or folk, art. The earliest examples appear in the 18th century though most date from the late 19th and early 20th century. They are mostly simple portraits of merchant ships and fishing vessels. They have little in common with the elaborate seascape of the traditional and academic schools of marine art. Pierhead artists are often described as naïve but this does not account for the skill of some of these artists. Neither does it allow for the accurate and often quite meticulous attention to detail. Those pictures that survive preserve, with accurate details, the only pictorial evidence of certain historic types of vessel.
Reference Images:
Post and Go Stamp
Presentation Pack (P&G 18)
Postmark illustrations
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