This dramatic oil painting shows a heavily manned three-masted armed lugger flying the blue ensign apparently in chase of a more distant brig flying the red ensign by moonlight, off a dramatic cooastline, with a fire burning on a headland. The ships are exchanging distant gunfire and the implication is that the lugger is a Revenue vessel in pursuit of a merchantman suspected of smuggling or flying false colours to cover that activity. The location is unclear but presumably British. Buttersworth did other variants on the subject: see for example BHC1113 and BHC1109. Practically the same composition as shown here (BHC1114) but in reverse and in daylight, with sone additional vesssels in the distance, appeared in another Buttersworth sold at Sotheby's (with one similar to BHC1109) on 18 July 1979, lot 15 (44 x 59.5 cm). In that one, the lugger was on the port tack and flying a plain dark flag - probably black - at the mizzen rather than a blue ensign and thus probably the smuggler in that case. [PvdM 11/14]