Industrial scene (Chainmakers), c. 1935?

Sir Frank Brangwyn RA (1867 - 1956)

RA Collection: Art

This squared up drawing depicts worker forging large chains. It is close in composition to an oil sketch in the Brugge Stedelijke Musea, Bruges, entitled 'The Chainmakers' (Inv. 0.765. I) https://www.flickr.com/photos/mazanto/22149138134/. According to V. de Bijser the latter was painted in a metal factory near Lake Garda, Italy, in 1920 (V. de Bijser, Inventarislijst naar de gegevens van dhr. V. De. Bijser, 1955, no. 54). The central section of this drawing, with men hammering a chain link on an anvil, is very similar to the oil ketch. There is another version in oils in the William Morris Gallery, https://www.wmgallery.org.uk/object/chain-makers/ .



Brangwyn scholar Libby Horner has suggested, however, that although this drawing relates to the works mentioned above it is probably of a later date. Brangwyn re-used the composition for a set of four murals (now untraced) that he designed for a reception room around 1935. Horner connects this composition with the depictions of agriculture, shipbuilding and fishing in the drawings RA 04/90, 04/89 and 04/86.