Width 156.0 cm x Height 110.0 cm
A painting done by Nicholas Henderson that is titled "Grain Ships Entering Harbour at Kingston". The painting depicts the harbour in front of Kingston City Hall with multiple schooners in the foreground, mid-ground and background. Fort Frederick is in the background with a small white tug boat towing a string of barges just off the point. The schooners are empty and are returning from Montreal for another cargo of grain for the grain elevators along the waterfront. There are cresting waves in the foreground. The main ship is a three-masted, black-hulled schooner that is coming up into a strong westerly wind with the anchor over the side ready to let go. The painting is signed "N. Henderson" in red paint in the lower left corner.
The painting is housed in an early 20th century gilt wood and plaster double frame (ornate gilt outer frame, plain wood inner frame). Plain back edge; bead-course, narrow scotia, foliate and scroll band, narrow scotia, leaf and berry band on top edge of outer frame; plain band, flush double bead, bevel to sight edge in plain varnished wood.
Nicholas Henderson was a local Kingston artist who lived from 1862 – 1934. He was a member of the Kingston Yacht Club and an avid painter of marine scenes. Henderson in his modest way falls within the grand tradition of British marine painting wherein it has been common for two centuries, for marine painters to spend their early years at sea, and it come to paint relatively late in life from outside the normal channels of the fine arts. By 1889, when his 'Grain Ships Entering Harbour at Kingston' was discussed in the Dominion Illustrated News, Henderson had received a training in the fine arts.
