Clyde shipping

Nocturnal dock scenes, with their forests of masts, glowing shop fronts and glossy streets constitute some of Grimshaw's most memorable images. Indeed his current world auction record is for such a scene of Liverpool docks, painted on the same scale and of a similar date to the current picture. His earliest dock subjects, which include Glasgow and Hull as well as Liverpool and Greenock, date from his move to Knostrop Hall in 1870, and mark his growing wealth and security as a professional artist and an increasing consistency in his style.

The areas on the Clyde favoured by Grimshaw had prospered through engineering, textiles and shipbuilding, with increasing trading links around the world. By the end of the nineteenth-century around four-hundred ships a year were transporting sugar from the Caribbean to Greenock for processing.