Audio Description:
Among the Missing - Scene in a Cornish Fishing Village by Walter Langley
Penlee House Gallery & Museum

The painting in front of us is called Among the Missing Ð Scene in a Cornish Fishing Village.  It is a watercolour painted by Walter Langley in 1884.  It is in portrait format, and is just over 1 metre tall by 70 centimetres wide, which is just over 3 foot tall by 2 foot wide.  It is mounted in a plain gold frame.

The painting is in muted colours, predominantly pale yellows, browns and greys, typical of the early Newlyn School artists, and shows a busy scene taking place on a quayside in Newlyn.  Numerous figures are milling about in front of a Post Office building, where a list of those lost at sea is displayed on the wall.  Two key female figures are in the foreground, in the centre.  They are walking away from the crowd; the younger woman is being comforted by the older woman.

The young woman, with head bowed and her right hand covering her face, is clearly distressed, suggesting her husband or loved one is one of those lost at sea.  To the right of the younger woman is the elderly lady, who has her arm around the back of the younger woman and clasps her left hand in hers.

The young woman is bare headed; her light brown hair is tied back from her face, a curly fringe covers her forehead.  She wears a long, pinky-brown dress with full length sleeves and has a large, white apron tied at her waist which blows to the right in the wind.  On her feet are scuffed and worn buttoned ankle boots. 

The elderly woman wears a bonnet with a barely visible white trim and a light brown, plaid woollen scarf over it, tying it to her head.  Wisps of white hair are just visible from under the bonnet.  Her face is turned to the left, nearly in profile, as she gazes at the young woman in the kind and concerned way of one who has seen this loss of a loved one before.  Her face is lined, almost weather beaten.  Her nose is prominent and her thin lips droop downward.  She wears a long dress in muted greys and browns with a light brown and grey plaid shawl.  She also wears worn boots.  The model for the older woman was Betsy Lanyon, one of Langley's favourite sitters.

The quay is painted as slabs of granite in greys and browns.  In the left foreground is a short black railing standing beside the corner of a dark recess, suggesting that steps leading down from the quay are just beyond the edge of the picture.

In the midground of the painting are around twenty people: men and women of different ages, standing in small groups talking to each other.  There is a feeling of activity: movement, talking, greeting and concern - even distress.   The figures are again painted in muted tones of browns, greys and yellows together with red, greens and blues.  The women mainly wear bonnets with shawls over them, the men soÕwesters and bowler hats.  Most of the men have beards. 

A prominent man at the front of the crowd, to the left, wears a soÕwester and cream smock with dark trousers.  He carries a large wicker basket as he talks to a woman with her back to us.  She wears a red scarf over her head and a cream blouse with sleeves rolled to the elbows.  She holds a red ewer or jug and her white apron is tied at her waist and around the back of her skirt. 

To the right of the crowd, another man carries a long pole on his shoulder as he walks towards a clinker-built boat, the stern of which is on the far right of the midground.   Another man on the far right carries a pole by his side with a fishing net over his shoulder.  Going deeper into the crowd, a woman talking to two others is holding a small dog in her arms and has a young child clinging to her skirts.

In the centre of the painting, a two-storey building painted in yellows and browns looms up behind the crowd, dominating the background of the scene.  On the left side of the building is a door with a porched canopy; ÔPost OfficeÕ is written in capital letters on the wall above it.  To the left of the door, a telegram bearing the names of the men lost at sea is pasted to the wall.  On the right of the building there are two paned windows at the first and ground floor, with a sign above the ground floor window reading ÔPostal Telegraph OfficeÕ. 

To the right of the Post Office is a moss-covered wall. Grey tiled roofs can be seen rising from behind it.  To the left of the Post Office, there is a building set back with steps running from right to left going up to the first floor, where a woman leans over the rail of a narrow landing looking down on the crowd.  The Post Office and adjacent buildings have grey roof tiles and brick chimneys.  The sky behind them is painted in dark and light tones of grey-blue.  

A telegraph pole at the left side of the Post Office rises up above the rooves.  Wires run from it, a sign of the new technology within a traditional and tragic scene. 

END OF AUDIO DESCRIPTION