TWO KELP harvesters prepare to bring their laden horse-drawn cart ashore on the vast sands of Mount's Bay, looking towards the old harbour at Newlyn and Mousehole, in this Edwardian image by Newlyn School painter Harold Harvey.
Watched by his faithful collie, one of the men pauses to light his pipe as the other directs the two horses towards the shore under a sky heavy with rain clouds. The 1905 scene, entitled Seaweed Gatherers, has been consigned to auction by a private collector and is expected to fetch up to £60,000 at Sotheby's sale of Victorian and Edwardian art in London on May 17.
Harold Harvey was born in North Parade, Penzance, in 1874. He trained at Penzance Art School and attended the Academie Julian in Paris between 1894 and 1896 before returning from France to marry Gertrude, also a painter, and moving to Maen Cottage in Newlyn in 1911. Harvey later turned from the sea to more gentle scenes of children building sandcastles, flying kites and playing in the sunshine.
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