Medium includes pen and black ink.; Signed by artist and dated, lower left. This has to be on the Thames or Medway. It may be the Nore with the guardship or another warship in the distance a (probably collier) brig coming up river on the right and a cutter on the far left. The boat at centre has all the general characteristics of a large downstream peter-poat except that they usually had a curved stern-post and rudder whereas they here appear straight. It may be a variation on account of size and the name was occasionally loosely applied to fishing boats not within narrow definition of the form. Serres did a number of oil paintings of shipping off Gravesend, including peter-boats, but the only one in the NMM collection is BHC1105, which includes a small upstream example in his painting of the Thames at Shillingford, Oxfordshire. [PvdM 7/07: amended 11/21]