Curatorial Narrative The unsigned “Come home, Dewey, we won’t do a thing to you” is an enigmatic contribution to the Victorian marine/ seascape genre. Emerging from an unspecified era, its visual syntax alludes to a mid-to-late 19th-century context where nationalist sentiments ran high. The brushwork is a conspicuous absence, implying that this image is a product of lithography or photography rather than traditional oil painting. The palette of red, white, blue, and gold serves as an overt expression of patriotism, yet its deployment avoids obviousness by being carefully calibrated to avoid sentimentalism. This is a studied exercise in chromatic structure, where the opposition between warm and cool colors creates a subtle tension that draws the viewer’s attention. Upon enlargement to 44×58, the spatial rhythm established by the arrangement of vessels and shore becomes even more pronounced, as the interplay between light and shadow