Sarah Louisa Kilpack Sunset, The Corbière, Jersey

An original late 19th-century oil painting, Sarah Louisa Kilpack, Sunset, The Corbière, Jersey.

A miniature jewel of a painting by Sarah Louisa Kilpack (1839–1909), showing the rocky coast at La Corbière in southwest Jersey. Kilpack is best known for her portrayals of stormy coastal scenes of the Channel Islands and she made a very successful living from her paintings in the latter part of the 19th century. This small-scale sunset view, painted in oil on card, is a perfect distillation of the qualities that made her work so popular: whilst capturing the rugged beauty of the coastal landscape and the dramatic potential of weather and light, she also introduces a human element—here the Corbière lighthouse—that brings a hint of narrative. The subject is immediately emotive—this stretch of coastline was notoriously treacherous, the scene of many shipwrecks—and also poetic, La Corbière meaning 'a place where crows gather'. Seagulls have long displaced the crows, included here by Kilpack at the lower right.

Oil paint on card. Presented in an attractive 19th-century decorative gesso and wood gilt frame.

Image size: 7.3 x 14.8cm. Frame size: 23.2 x 30.4cm.