Overall: 43.5cm (17.2in) x 56cm (22in)
Watercolour on paper. Signed lower right on the chart table, and inscribed with title to mount.
Sheet: 23.5cm (9.2in) x 36cm x (14.2in).
Claude Grahame Muncaster, RWS, RBA, ROI, SMA (1903-1974) was the son of the landscape painter Oliver Hall RA (1869-1957), and was educated at Queen Elizabeth School, Cranbrook, Kent. He trained under the direction of his father and first exhibited as Grahame Hall at the RA in 1921 and 1922 when he took the name Claude Muncaster. Her held his first one man exhibition at the Fine Arts Society in 1926; became an Associate of the Royal Watercolour Society, 1931, and full member from 1936. He was a founder member of the Royal Society of Marine Artists, and later president (1958-74). He made several long distance sea voyages as a deckhand, writing and illustrating his experiences in ‘Rolling Round the Horn’ (1933). During the Second World War he was commissioned into the RNVR with the rank of Lieutenant-Commander and was employed on camouflage schemes for of shipping. Post war he exhibited extensively and was commissioned to produce watercolours of royal residences, 1946-7. He was the author of ‘The Students' Book of Watercolour Painting’, (1938) and ‘Landscape and Marine Painting in Oils and Watercolours’, (1958). Muncaster’s work is included in the Tate and National Maritime Museum collections.
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HMS Rodney was one of two Nelson-class battleships built for the Royal Navy in the mid-1920s. During the early stages of the Second World War, she searched for German commerce raiders, participated in the Norwegian Campaign, and escorted convoys in the Atlantic Ocean. Rodney played a major role in the sinking of the German battleship Bismarck in mid-1941.
After a brief refit in the United States, she escorted convoys to Malta and supported the Allied invasion of French Algeria during Operation Torch in late 1942. The ship covered the invasions of Sicily (Operation Husky) and Italy (Operation Baytown) in mid-1943. During the Normandy landings in June 1944, Rodney provided naval gunfire support and continued to do so for several following offensives near the French city of Caen. The ship escorted one convoy through the Arctic to the Soviet Union in late 1944. In poor condition from extremely heavy use and a lack of refits, she was reduced to reserve in late 1945 and was scrapped in 1948.