(Recto) Malta 1852, from the stern port of Trafalgar; (Verso) Moses and the Golden Calf (copy of a painting?) RMG PZ0862-001

(Recto) Malta 1852, from the stern port of Trafalgar; (Verso) Moses and the Golden Calf (copy of a painting?)

No. 14 of 36 (PAI0849 - PAI0884).

(Recto) Inscribed top left, 'Malta March 2nd 1852, from the stern port of Trafalgar'. The exact orientation of this view in Grand Harbour, Valletta, is not easy to pin down but it may be across the mouth of Dockyard Creek - from which the bow of a British warship at anchor protrudes - towards St Angelo, with St Michael on the right.

(Verso) This bears what appears to be a sketched copy of a neo-classical painting of Moses, in a bishop's mitre, disapproving of three revellers dancing round the Golden Calf, represented as a statue on a plinth, the whole shown as in a plain oil-painting frame.

It does not look like Mends's hand but is very similar to the drawing of two girls on PAI0859 which he describes as by Lord Bury. He clearly later stuck another small drawing over it, now missing but identified by its inscribed caption, top left of the 'Calf' sketch: 'Dock Yard Gibraltar / Augst 12th 52 / From the Gardens'. PAD0871 dated 13 August 1852 at Gibraltar is probably also above the dockyard but possibly further up the hill.

Malta 1852, from the stern port of Trafalgar