John Nash first visited Bristol in the 1920s after a recommendation from Edward Wadsworth, who had been sent there during World War I to supervise the painting of ships with 'dazzle camouflage'. Nash then returned in November of 1938, bringing with him friend and fellow artist Eric Ravilious (1903-1942).
The pair sat side by side at Bristol Docks painting the paddle steamers laid up in winter berths. On one occasion where Ravilious had ventured out alone drawing outside after dark, and was working intently on his picture of a paddle steamer, he had suddenly heard a grinding noise and a voice calling out, 'lucky for you I saw you, old cock, or you'd have been a box of cold meat.' Eric had set up his easel, without noticing it was on the tracks of one of those light railways that are used in the docks (Helen Binyon).
Both Nash and Ravilious produced views of P & A Campbell's steamer Britannia, seen from the same spot on Mardyke Wharf, giving fascinating insight into the methods of each artist, both the similarities in understated colour and tonal range, and the differences in composition and choice of detail.
The paddle steamer Britannia depicted in the present work was stationed at Bristol Quay, and was requisitioned by the Royal Navy at the outbreak of the war and renamed HMS Skiddaw. She was a fast ship and she still holds the Bristol Channel speed record for a trip to Ilfracombe to Weston with a time of one hour and fifty six minutes. She was sold for scrapping in 1956 after sixty years as a favourite steamer.
