Henry George Hine was a notable Victorian watercolourist (he rose to become Vice President of the Royal Institute) who specialised in delicate, intimate depictions of the South Coast and the South Downs, where he lived for most of his long life.

Hine was born in Brighton and was apprenticed to a stipple engraver called Henry Meyer in London before spending two years in Rouen. He then returned to the South Coast where he set up as a jobbing artist, contributing illustrations to Punch and the Illustrated London News as well as marine paintings. Hine’s work in watercolours was influenced by the then pre-eminent practitioner, Anthony Vandyke Copley Fielding, both in terms of treatment and subject matter.

Hine devised his own unique method of refining the cake colours sold by the colourmen, by grinding them on the slab a second time to achieve greater fineness, according to Sir George Clausen. “Then when he had mixed a tint in a sauce, he would let it stand a while and then pour off the top and use that for his skies, which were of an extreme delicacy”.

This attention to detail clearly paid off. The watercolour we have for sale depicts, with lovely colour and extraordinary minuteness, an obviously familiar scene on an inlet at Shoreham. The striped-aproned proprietor of a dog cart (the dogs are all individuals), passes the time of day with a pair of portly gents on the beach, one leaning on his stick as they chat. The whole scene has a ship-in-a-bottle appeal that is reminiscent of a portrait miniature.