Serpentine Rocks, Scilly Isles, Lands End, England 1895

This dramatic and beautifully detailed work features Jenner’s recurring subject of rugged English coastlines and seascapes. The Scilly Isles, located southwest of Land’s End, Cornwall, England, was notable for numerous shipwrecks, which would have resonated with Jenner’s naval background.

Composed of watercolour and coloured chalk, it showcases Jenner’s technical abilities — he creates a Turneresque mood gesturing towards the romantic and the sublime. Rugged rocks are bathed in delicate shafts of sunlight as they filter through the clouds to the shoreline below. The ‘serpentine rocks’ referred to in the title are a type of scaly rock — rather than a location — resembling the texture of snakeskin used extensively in the nineteenth century for decorative purposes.

Jenner gave the artwork to his youngest daughter, Flora Alberta, as a wedding present.