Audio description:
The Inner Harbour - Abbey Slip by Stanhope Alexander Forbes 
Penlee House Gallery & Museum

The painting I am about to describe is called The Inner Harbour - Abbey Slip and is by Stanhope Forbes.  It is oil on canvas and measures just under 1 metre tall by 1 metre wide or 2 ? foot tall by just over 3 foot wide.  It has an ornate gilt frame.  It was painted in 1921 Òen plein airÓ, meaning Òin the openÓ or outside.
 
The painting shows a Penzance harbour-side scene lit by warm evening sunlight.  There is a cluster of buildings running horizontally across the top half the painting, the skyline of which is dominated by the tower of St MaryÕs Church.  The water of PenzanceÕs inner harbour, the Abbey Basin, is shown in the lower half of the painting.  The Abbey Slip referred to in the title is a steep path or roadway which runs up the right-hand side of the scene, providing access to the inner harbour from the town above.  

The evening sunlight falls on the jumble of rooves and stone buildings across the top of the painting.  It lights the church tower towards the right of the skyline, and turns it a warm pinky-yellow.  The tower is rectangular and has a tall pointed pinnacle at each corner.  

The Abbey Slip descends from the sunlight to the shadow of the harbour.  Towards the top of the slip the road splits.  The right side of the slip becomes a set of steep stone steps.  The left side remains a paved surface which continues down to curve across the bottom right-hand foreground of the picture.  

In the midground of the painting, to the left of the Abbey Slip, is a long, three-storey warehouse.  Five small boats painted in shades of white, blue and brown sit on the ground outside the building, and a small white boat is moored in the harbour directly in front of it. 

In the foreground of the painting is the water of the harbour.  Broken blocks of colour on its surface suggest reflections of the buildings above.  The water is painted in an Impressionistic style with short horizontal and parallel brush strokes of single colours, including blues, greys and browns.  The water is calm and the evening warm and still.  

On the far left-hand side of the harbour, in the midground and just below the buildings of the town, a large steam ship is in the dock, its black funnel stripped with gold.  Floating in the harbour, close to the Abbey Slip on the right-hand side of the painting, is a small greenish-grey wooden boat.  Three men sit inside near the stern whilst a fourth man stands in the prow ready to throw a rope.  A man in dark clothes stands on the stone paving of the slip, ready to catch the rope and tie up the boat.  

There are people of all ages dotted along the slip.  Five small figures walk up and down the stone steps on the right-hand side of the slip.  Others stop and pass the time of day on their way home.  A group of children in the right foreground, mostly young boys, lean or sit on a rail chatting and relaxing.  Some of the children have bare arms and feet.  One wears a distinctive reddish-brown shirt.  Their faces, in contrast to the other figures, are distinct.  

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