WW1 Original Watercolour Warships by Moonlight 1916 Monogrammed Naval Painting For Sale

Watercolour and bodycolour, the painted panel set within a ruled ink border on a card sheet. Signed at the lower right with an ornate interlaced monogram, which reads as H D or J D, and dated 12.3.18.A night scene at sea under a clear moon. In the foreground a warship steams from left to right in near silhouette, two funnels smoking, two masts with yards and rigging, a gun forward, a small flag at the stern and a white bow wave breaking under her. Astern of her and further off, a second vessel of three funnels sits low on the horizon. Above and beyond that ship is a further dark elongated shape on the skyline. The sky is worked from deep blue at the top down to a pale green horizon glow, and the sea is handled in loose blue washes with white highlights on the wake.The effect is deliberately theatrical: everything in the ships is reduced to flat black silhouette against a graded night sky, with the only touches of colour the moon, the glow at the funnel tops and a single red port light. It is the work of someone with a decorative eye rather than a naval draughtsman’s precision, and it reads at a distance the way a poster does.Dated in the middle of the war, March 1918, the month before the Battle of Jutland.ConditionGood. Toning and light soiling to the card, more pronounced at the outer margins, a few small nicks and short closed tears to the sheet edges, a soft vertical crease in the lower margin. The painted area itself is clean and the colour is strong and unfaded. Sold as found, unframed.MeasurementsSheet: 17cm x 15cm wide. Painted area: 10cm x 14cm wide.