John Stobart: Grand Bankers Returning Home

John Stobart: Grand Bankers Returning Home
(source: FB page of Bing McGilvray)
no copyright infringement intended

Like all the paintings by John Stobart, this one also speaks about a concrete sailing ship, and I was curious to know the history behind. I found it on Pinterest, told there by Brad Green. The Grand Bankers were returning to the fishing port of Gloucester, Massachusetts. They were two-masted schooners that had sailed out of the city's harbor for fishing on the Grand Banks in Newfoundland. The ships generally carried twelve dories for individual fisherman to oar into the banks looking for their catch of cod. Such work took great skill and expertise, as the work was dangerous and many a lone fisherman failed to return to the schooner before being overtaken in the haze of a fog bank.


(John Stobart)