St. Michael's Mount

Painting, oil on board, St. Michael's Mount, West Cornwall, by Ronald Lampitt, about 1959. Depicts the view looking over Marazion towards the island of St Michael's Mount, with cottages in the foreground and sailing boats in the bay. Original artwork for British Railways (Western Region) poster St Michael's Mount, with the legend By Train to Marazion. Signed by the artist at bottom left.

Oil painting of St Michael's Mount by Ronald Lampitt, about 1959. It depicts the view from Marazion to the island of St Michael's Mount.

St Michael's Mount is a tidal island off the south coast of Cornwall, linked to the mainland by a causeway which floods at hgh tide. It was once the site of a Benedictine priory, a daughter house of the remarkably similar Mont St Michel in Normandy. The Mount was later fortified with a castle and passed into the ownership of the St Aubyn family, which donated a large part of the island to the National Trust in 1954.

Ronald Lampitt was born in Worcester in 1906. He was a self-taught commercial artist and illustrator, who produced artworks for John Bull magazine, The Sunday Times, Reader's Digest and other publications. He worked on children's books in collaboration with his brother-in-law, Henry Deverson and illustrated nine Ladybird books and the magazine Look and Learn.

Lampitt produced posters and carriage prints for the Great Western, Southern and London, Midland & Scottish Railways and later for British Railways. He died in 1988.