Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens – IMS Photography

Chinese Ladies Looking

Ian Malpass-Scott — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 15:54:55 +0000

In this painting, a Chinese man is shown holding up a delicate western lady’s shoe. The Chinese ladies are laughing because the shoe is so large compared with shoes for their own tiny feet. Small feet were considered a sign of beauty in China, and women bound their feet to make them as small as possible.

Hodgson was born in London, but spent his childhood in Russia. He painted historical scenes until he travelled to Africa in 1868. He visited Tunis, Tangier, Algiers and Morocco; and from that time almost all of his paintings feature scenes of African life.

Provenance: On loan from the Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle

Object description
Type: Easel painting
Location: Sunderland Museum & Winter Garden, Tyne & Wear
Material: Oil on canvas
Artist: John Evan Hodgson (1831-1895)
Date: 1868

Image Details
Date: 20 April 2026
Camera body: iPhone Xs
Lens: Wide Camera 26mm ƒ/1.8
Focal Length: 26mm
Aperture: ƒ/1.8
Shutter Speed: 1/25s
ISO: 640
Licensing: Image of a Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens asset. This image cannot be licensed.

Sunderland Pier and Lighthouse

Ian Malpass-Scott — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 15:54:55 +0000

A broken mast at the edge of the pier shows the dangers of the North East coast where there were many wrecks.

Groups of figures look out to sea, perhaps waiting for a ship to come home.

On the left is the wooden 18th century Tide Light which stood at the end of the South Pier in Sunderland Harbour. The Tide Light was replaced in 1856 as part of a gradual series of improvements made to the harbour.

Provenance: Given by the Port of Sunderland Authority, 1973

Object description
Type: Easel painting
Location: Sunderland Museum & Winter Garden, Tyne & Wear
Material: Oil on canvas
Artist: John Wilson Carmichael (1799-1868)
Date: 1845

Image Details
Date: 20 April 2026
Camera body: iPhone Xs
Lens: Wide Camera 26mm ƒ/1.8
Focal Length: 26mm
Aperture: ƒ/1.8
Shutter Speed: 1/33s
ISO: 400
Licensing: Image of a Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens asset. This image cannot be licensed.

Sunderland Harbour

Ian Malpass-Scott — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 15:54:55 +0000

Carmichael is one of the North East’s favourite painters because of his technically brilliant scenes of familiar local landmarks.

The view seen here shows the inside the piers looking out to sea at the mouth of the River Wear.

This picture was painted in his London studio working from sketches he had made in the 1830s.

Object description
Type: Easel painting
Location: Sunderland Museum & Winter Garden, Tyne & Wear
Material: Oil on board
Artist: John Wilson Carmichael (1799-1868)
Date: 1866

Image Details
Date: 20 April 2026
Camera body: iPhone Xs
Lens: Wide Camera 26mm ƒ/1.8
Focal Length: 26mm
Aperture: ƒ/1.8
Shutter Speed: 1/33s
ISO: 320
Licensing: Image of a Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens asset. This image cannot be licensed.

Sunderland Harbour

Ian Malpass-Scott — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 15:54:55 +0000

Carmichael was born in Newcastle. His father was a ship’s carpenter, and he was apprenticed to a shipbuilder in his youth.

At the age of 23, he set up a painting workshop, sharing the premises Blackett Street, Newcastle with the painter Thomas Richardson, Senior.

It has been suggested that Richardson may have been his teacher.

Carmichael left Newcastle to travel throughout Italy.

By 1847 he had returned to Britain and set up a studio in London. He was very prolific and a regular exhibitor of marine works.

Provenance: Given by the Port of Sunderland Authority, 1973

Object description
Type: Easel painting
Location: Sunderland Museum & Winter Garden, Tyne & Wear
Material: Oil on board
Artist: John Wilson Carmichael (1799-1868)
Date: 1862

Sunderland Piers in a Storm

Ian Malpass-Scott — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 15:54:55 +0000

This dramatic sketch is an unfinished work. It shows the South Pier with the North Pier in the background. The masts of ships in difficulty can be seen on the right outside the harbour.

Born in Newcastle, Richardson was a self-taught artist. He was a founder member of the Newcastle upon Tyne Institution for the General Promotion of the Fine Arts.

Provenance: Given by the Port of Sunderland Authority, 1973

Object description
Type: Easel painting
Location: Sunderland Museum & Winter Garden, Tyne & Wear
Material: Oil on board
Artist: Thomas Miles Richardson, Senior (1784-1848)
Date: 1828

The Story of the Wreck

Ian Malpass-Scott — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 15:54:55 +0000

The Story of the Wreck by Richard Beavis (1824–1896)

Object description
Type: Easel painting
Location: Sunderland Museum & Winter Garden, Tyne & Wear
Material: Oil on canvas
Artist: Richard Beavis (1824–1896)
Date: c. 1872

Image Details
Date: 20 April 2026
Camera body: iPhone Xs
Lens: Telephoto Camera 52mm ƒ/2.4
Focal Length: 52mm
Aperture: ƒ/2.4
Shutter Speed: 1/33s
ISO: 400
Licensing: Image of a Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens asset. This image cannot be licensed.

Sunny Climes, Tahiti

Ian Malpass-Scott — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 15:54:55 +0000

Sunderland Museum’s collections include plaited grass necklaces from Tahiti very similar to those shown in this painting. The figures in this painting, however, look like Ancient Greek or Roman maidens rather than Tahitians. Many painters adapted their subjects to suit the taste of their clients.

Chevalier was born in Russia and visited many parts of the world, finally settling in London. During his travels Chevalier made studies of ‘exotic’ ways of life, and used these studies as inspiration for paintings.

Provenance: Bequeathed by John Dickinson, 1908

Object description
Type: Easel painting
Location: Sunderland Museum & Winter Garden, Tyne & Wear
Material: Oil on canvas
Artist: Nicholas Chevalier (1828-1902)
Date: 1883

Image Details
Date: 20 April 2026
Camera body: iPhone Xs
Lens: Telephoto Camera 52mm ƒ/2.4
Focal Length: 52mm
Aperture: ƒ/2.4
Shutter Speed: 1/50s
ISO: 500
Licensing: Image of a Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens asset. This image cannot be licensed.

Sunderland Harbour

Ian Malpass-Scott — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 15:54:55 +0000

Sunderland Harbour by Louis Hubbard Grimshaw (1870–1944)

Provenance: purchased from Mr A. H. Dodd with the assistance of the National Art Collections Fund and the Museums and Galleries Commission/Victoria and Albert Museum Purchase Grant Fund, 1997

Object description
Type: Easel painting
Location: Sunderland Museum & Winter Garden, Tyne & Wear
Material: Oil on canvas
Artist: Louis Hubbard Grimshaw (1870–1944)
Date: 1899

Image Details
Date: 20 April 2026
Camera body: iPhone Xs
Lens: Wide Camera 26mm ƒ/1.8
Focal Length: 26mm
Aperture: ƒ/1.8
Shutter Speed: 1/25s
ISO: 500
Licensing: Image of a Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens asset. This image cannot be licensed.

Entrance to Sunderland Harbour

Ian Malpass-Scott — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 15:54:55 +0000

Ships often required the aid of a river pilot to enter port safely. The small rowing boats in the painting are probably ferrying pilots to and from ships at the mouth of the Wear.

Carmichael was born in Newcastle. By his early 20s he had established his own studio in Newcastle, and he began exhibiting in 1825. In 1846 he moved to London where he worked successfully until 1862.

Provenance: Given by the Port of Sunderland Authority, 1973

Object description
Type: Easel painting
Location: Sunderland Museum & Winter Garden, Tyne & Wear
Material: Oil on board
Artist: John Wilson Carmichael (1799-1868)
Date: 1862

Image Details
Date: 20 April 2026
Camera body: iPhone Xs
Lens: Wide Camera 26mm ƒ/1.8
Focal Length: 26mm
Aperture: ƒ/1.8
Shutter Speed: 1/25s
ISO: 400
Licensing: Image of a Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens asset. This image cannot be licensed.

George Hudson

Ian Malpass-Scott — Fri, 09 May 2025 16:11:00 +0000

George Hudson (probably 10 March 1800 – 14 December 1871) was an English railway financier and politician who, because he controlled a significant part of the railway network in the 1840s, became known as “The Railway King”—a title conferred on him by Sydney Smith in 1844.

Hudson played a significant role in linking London to Edinburgh by rail, carrying out the first major merging of railway companies (the Midland Railway) and developing his home city of York into a major railway junction. He also represented Sunderland in the House of Commons. Hudson’s success was built on dubious financial practices and he frequently paid shareholders out of capital rather than money the company had earned.

Eventually in 1849, a series of enquiries, launched by the railways he was chairman of, exposed his methods, although many leading the enquiries had benefited from and approved of Hudson’s methods when it suited them. Hudson fell a long way, becoming bankrupt. After losing his Sunderland seat he was forced to live abroad to avoid arrest for debt, returning only when imprisonment for debt was abolished in 1870.

Hudson’s name is associated with financial wrongdoing, although others were at least partially guilty of similar practices. He never named any of his co-conspirators, although many of them turned their backs on him when the bubble burst.

Provenance: Gift from the Port of Sunderland, 1973, on loan to Monkwearmouth Station Museum

Text from Wikipedia

Object description
Type: Easel painting
Location: Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens, Tyne & Wear
Material: Oil on canvas
Artist: Francis Grant (1803–1878)
Date: 1846

Image Details
Date: 9 May 2025
Camera body: iPhone Xs
Lens: Telephoto Camera 52mm ƒ/2.4
Focal Length: 52mm
Aperture: ƒ/2.4
Shutter Speed: 1/33s
ISO: 400
Licensing: Image of a Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens asset. This image cannot be licensed.