paintings, which were the source material of the articles written on the subject in the arts and crafts magazines of the day. Eventually 37 of his collection of sand paintings were the main feature at an auction held at Sotheby's New Bond Street gallery on 15 June 1956. Victorian sand picture souvenirs Thousands of sites exist where it is possible to collect natural coloured sands for craftwork, with an enormous range of colours being available around the globe varying with the contents of the mineral charged waters leaching through the sands. But for the tourist the vertical sand cliffs at Alum Bay on the Isle of Wight form the central portion of a visual geological phenomenon (best viewed after a shower of rain) which encapsulates the impressive chalk spires of The Needles and Tennyson Downs. Although tourists are no longer encouraged to obtain their own sand from the cliffs, numerous companies on the Island sell sand for the purpose of Sandpainting. After her marriage to Prince Albert and having chosen Osborne House near Cowes to be her new family retreat, Queen Victoria was the prime mover in the gentrification of this former backwater, local artisans benefitted from the influx of wealthy visitors, and a number of craftsmen sold their fixed sand pictures and unfixed sand jars featuring views of the Island as unique keepsakes of the Isle of Wight. Some of these sand pictures were small and crude and left unsigned, but Edwin and John Dore of Arreton produced some fine work in the 1840s. The pictures were of postcard size and the subject matter local views such as Carisbrooke Castle, and other touristy subjects. Edwin always signed his quaint pictures in a fine hand with a mapping pen and Indian ink, one of his most successful mass-produced subjects being 'Collecting birds eggs on Needles Cliffs'. John Dore used a card embellished with a printed border of lace design on which to execute his sand pictures although the quality of his work was inferior to that of his brother. Few of the Island sand artists filled in the sky, giving that detail a light colourwash as a finishing touch, sometimes leaving doors and windows free of sand which would be blocked in with Indian ink. In the 1860s and 1870s J. Symons of Cowes kept up the good work, producing local views much larger than postcard size, mounted in glazed