“HMS Chrysanthemum” by A. Taylor
an English mid-century watercolour, signed, framed behind non-reflective glass,
depicting the Anchusa class minesweeper moored alongside,
£335
Commissioned in 1917 as a minesweeper, and intentionally designed to look like a merchant ship in order to dupe those viewing her from a periscope, HMS Chrysanthemum had a colourful career in the First War off Turkey – working on the exchange of prisoners of war – and later during the Spanish Civil War. In 1938 she was permanently moored on the Thames Embankment and used as a drill ship until finally being decommissioned in 1988 and sold to a charity. Steven Speilberg used her as a location for an Indiana Jones film before she was laid up in The Medway. The brackish water there took its toll on the hull and she was scrapped in 1995.