A pair of views of Charlotte Amalie on the Island of St Thomas in the Virgin Islands, after Lieutenant Walford Thomas Bellairs R.N.

Walford Thomas Bellairs (1794-1850) joined the Navy in 1809 and was made Lieutenant in 1819. From 1842 he served as Admiralty Agent in charge of mail on board a ‘contract Mail steam-vessel’. It is during this time that Bellairs began sketching, and painting. The National Maritime Museum hold two examples of his West India drawings, whilst the Library of Australia a watercolour of Panama. A large collection of his sketches of the Far East were sold in 1982. His work was evidently held in high enough regard, as in around 1843 his watercolour views of St. Thomas in the West Indies were drawn on stone by W.L. Walton, lithographed and hand-coloured by Charles Hullmandel – the present work – and published as separate prints.