All Hands to the Pumps

All Hands to the Pumps is an 1888–89 painting by British artist Henry Scott Tuke.

At the time, the 21-year-old Tuke was living on an old French brig Julie of Nantes, which he anchored in Falmouth Harbour to use as a floating studio.

It depicts several crewmen on the deck of a ship in a storm, manning the pump to remove water from the vessel.

The lively composition uses diagonal lines — arms, rigging, mast, pump handle, wind-blown flag — to draw the eye around the painting.

[2] University of Louisville professor Jongwoo Jeremy Kim detects a homoerotic subtext and speculates that the second figure from the left, with a white shirt under a grey waistcoat, wearing a cap, could be Tuke himself, looking across at Jack Rowling, one of Tuke's regular models, on the right in a red hat.