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Although Wadsworth created similar paintings when exploring variations of a particular theme, he rarely produced copies of his work. Thanks to the popularity of the Queen Mary, however, he produced a copy of Arrival for his friend Mrs W.A. Fitzgerald, and, with Wadsworth’s permission, his assistant Henry Bingham Towner made several copies of Dressed Overall.32 Towner’s copies, which vary only very slightly, have been easily confused with those by Wadsworth. The key, however, lies in the ‘signature’. Cleverly using flags from the international code of signals, Wadsworth signed both Arrival and Dressed Overall with his initials EW. 33 In both works, Wadsworth’s ‘signature’ can be seen waving from the jetty flagpole. In copying this detail, Towner used his own initials.34

In addition to disagreements over subject matter, Wadsworth was faced with logistical challenges as he worked upon the largest commission of his career. As he wrote to Armfield from his home in Maresfield, Sussex, ‘at the moment I am tethered here painting two enormous panels…for the Queen Mary. I think these must be almost the biggest tempera paintings since Mantegna – and the price of eggs is going steadily up in Sussex!’35

The sheer size of the paintings created difficulties. Arrival measures 274.3 x 182 cm and Dressed Overall 366 x 244 cm. Unable to accommodate the panels in his studio, Wadsworth rented the village hall from the parish council. The agreement stipulated that he would rebuild the covered entrance, which he had to dismantle to get the panels inside the building. Time constraints and the scale of the project led Wadsworth to hire Towner as his assistant. Both paintings had to be completed by February 1936, yet, because of the changes insisted upon by Cunard, Wadsworth had begun working on them only in October 1935.36

The Queen Mary panels, like most of Wadsworth’s work since the early 1920s, were painted in egg tempera. If prepared properly, tempera, once dried, is an incredibly durable medium that retains the freshness of its pigments. However, it is a time-consuming technique that requires careful preparation of materials and execution, setting in the shadows first and layering glazes upon one another. With classical music coming over the wireless, Towner assisted Wadsworth by squaring up (from a wooden frame set over the panels laid out on the floor), painting in the large stretches of sky, sea and foreground and washing in the colour.37 On 29 October Arrival was begun and was finished a little over a month later, on 1 December.38

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