"Arrival of the Gothic 1954"
Oil on Canvas
69x121cm
Signed Lower Left, Dated 1954, Titled verso
Prov: Private Collection Victoria
$5,000-8,000
The arrival of the RMS Gothic in Sydney Harbour on 3 February 1954 marked one of the great public events of post-war Australia. On board was the 27 year old Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, beginning their extensive Australian Royal Tour. Elizabeth was the first reigning British monarch to visit Australia, and an estimated one million people crowded Sydney’s streets and harbour foreshores to witness her arrival. After entering the harbour aboard the Gothic, the Queen came ashore at Farm Cove, beginning a tour that would take the Royal couple throughout the country.
For noted marine painter John Allcot, the arrival provided an exceptional subject. Remarkably, records held by the City of Sydney Archives show that in October 1953, several months before the Royal Visit, Allcot had approached the Sydney City Council offering to paint and sell a work depicting the arrival of the Gothic in Sydney Harbour. A specialist maritime artist who had spent much of his career painting the ships and activity of Australian ports, Allcot clearly recognised both the historical importance and visual possibilities of the approaching event.
The resulting subject brought together two central elements of Allcot’s work: his intimate knowledge of Sydney Harbour and his fascination with ships. Here, however, the familiar harbour setting records a moment of national significance. The Gothic represents not simply another vessel entering Sydney, but the ship that carried Queen Elizabeth II on her historic first arrival in Australia, witnessed by one of the largest crowds ever assembled around the harbour.
