The Brown Sail

See the letter below from the original owners of this and another work from Richard's 1945 Paintings for Children show at the Redfern Gallery. The boys would probably have been about 11 and 9.

It reads:

Dear Mr Eurich
I thought you might like to know that Nigel and I have been given two of your Pictures.  The Gentle Okapi and the Brown sails.  I have got the okapi because I like animals, and the wreath round its neck and the red band round the bucket. I thought the pictures in the Gallery were so very nice. I thought …

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See the letter below from the original owners of this and another work from Richard's 1945 Paintings for Children show at the Redfern Gallery. The boys would probably have been about 11 and 9.

It reads:

Dear Mr Eurich
I thought you might like to know that Nigel and I have been given two of your Pictures.  The Gentle Okapi and the Brown sails.  I have got the okapi because I like animals, and the wreath round its neck and the red band round the bucket. I thought the pictures in the Gallery were so very nice. I thought as a Picture, the okapi was better than the Leopeard.

Love from
Nigel
and 
Kiffer Finzi

The picture is usually descibed as depicting a 'Thames sailing barge', but In his sales diary Richard calls it a 'Rochester barge'. 

We cannot find references to a type of barge specifically described as a ' Rochester barge', so the work might have been painted in Rochester which is near the mouth of the River Thames, or depict a barge of the 'London and Rochester Trading Company'.