Rough Sketch Book. No. 2.

Sketchbook containing around 50 drawings, created by British naval officer Aiskew Paffard Hollis (1764–1844) during the first decade of the nineteenth century. Included are coastal profiles with navigational notes relating to locations in Portugal, Italy, Malta and the Bay of Naples; studies of flora and fauna, including British tree species, pilot fish and a woodpecker; landscapes and coastal views, including a series of details views of the area around St George’s Harbour in Bermuda; figure studies, including Spanish fishermen and beggars in Malta; architectural and archaeological studies, including monuments in St John’s Church at Malta and the Sphinx, Cleopatra’s Needle and other Egyptian antiquities; a scene from the Second Battle of Algeciras on 12 July 1801; one page of portrait studies, including a sketch of Emma Hamilton; and a copy of a scientific diagram explaining ‘the effect of contrasting colours’.

Hollis made the majority of these sketches while captain of the ‘Thames’ in 1801–03, during which time he was stationed in the Mediterranean and Egypt, and of the ‘Mermaid’ in 1803–08, when he was based in Bermuda.