On a P. & O.; Bay of Biscay

Bone's drawing of a P. & O. (Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company) liner in the Bay of Biscay combines two of his favorite subjects: ships and the sea. The Bay of Biscay, notorious for its rough weather, gives Bone the opportunity to show the liner in the kind of heavy seas that test both the ship's structural engineering and the artist's ability to render the relationship between a man-made object and the natural forces that surround it. The watercolor and graphite medium captures the ship's structural details (the funnels, the rigging, the deck structures) while the watercolor washes convey the sea's movement and atmospheric conditions.

The P. & O. Line was one of the great shipping companies of the British Empire, and its liners were as architecturally significant as any building. Bone's interest in ships was consistent with his broader architectural practice: a liner is a floating building, and its structural complexity demands the same kind of precise draftsmanship that a cathedral or a bridge requires.

On a P. & O.; Bay of Biscay is Bone proving that his architectural eye works at sea as well as on land. The ship is as precisely observed as any building, and the rough seas provide the dynamic context that gives the drawing its drama and significance.