HMS Vanguard Royal Visit

1947

Watercolour by George Willian Pilkington (1879-1958). Signed and dated in pen. Pilkington, had a studio, named 'Orania' in Ley Road, Kalk Bay. He is best known as a marine and landscape painter specialising in oil painting from WWI.

In 1947, King George VI, Queen Elizabeth, and Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret undertook an extensive six-month, 10,000-mile Royal Tour of South Africa, Southern Rhodesia, and surrounding territories, traveling primarily on a specially commissioned "White Train".
Arriving by HMS Vanguard in Cape Town on 17 February 1947, the visit served as a post-war "thank you" and a diplomatic effort by Prime Minister Jan Smuts to strengthen Imperial ties against rising Afrikaner nationalism.

Restored. Some discolouration

380mm x 275mm

R5,000