Nov 10, 2022 - Sale 2621

Sale 2621 - Lot 84

Price Realized: $ 11,875
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 5,000 - $ 7,500

MONTAGUE BIRRELL BLACK (1884-1964)

FRENCH LINE C.G.T / NORMANDIE. Circa 1938.


39 3/4x25 inches, 101x63 1/2 cm.
Condition A-: minor expert overpainting and restoration in margins; creases and minor restoration in image.

Montague Birrell Black was an accomplished ship portraitist and produced many of the paintings, postcards and posters for the White Star Line through the 1920s. He also worked for other transportation companies, like the French Line and Blue Star Line, the London Underground and British Railway. This snapshot of the Normandie sailing out to sea, past a lighthouse, gives a wonderful impression of the monolithic size of the vessel. Seen from a low angle, the ship towers over everything and is in fact, too big to even fit inside the frame of the poster. Weallans p. 151.