The Cutty Sark was immortalised as the fastest commercial sailing vessel of its time. She was built at Dumbarton in 1869 by Scott & Linton and completed by Denny Bros, who launched her on 23 November 1869. Initially the Cutty Sark transported tea from Shanghai to London, with her fastest voyage recorded in the winter of 1870, in which she travelled from London to Shanghai in ninety-eight days. The opening of the Suez Canal and the subsequent domination of the China tea trade by steamers in the 1880s, saw the Cutty Sark relocated to the fast-growing Australian wool trade. It was on this route that the Cutty Sark’s reputation for speed became renowned, with her fastest trip recorded as seventy-three days between Sydney and London in October 1885. Following World War I, she was brought home for restoration in 1922, and eventually moved to her dry dock in Greenwich in 1954, where she can still be seen today.

As a keen yachtsman and an officer in the Royal Navy, Montague Dawson’s knowledge of maritime subjects is evidenced in his meticulous detailing of the standing rigging within this picture. Dawson’s painting commemorates the ‘Great Tea Races’ and Australian wool runs and presents a nostalgia for the bygone era of British clipper ships.