The painter Oskar Kokoschka spent the summer of 1941 on the coast of Scotland at a friend’s invitation. While there, he drew sketches from nature and painted watercolours, which he then continued work on after his return to London. This harsh painting came out of what had been a gentle watercolour; the landscape grew into a political allegory. Kokoschka applied this method frequently.

First, Kokoschka added a rotund woman on a shark’s back to the bottom of the canvas. By giving her a crown and red robes, Kokoschka makes clear that she is meant to be Queen Victoria. She is shoving a sailor into the shark’s wide-open jaw. In the centre of the canvas, we can discern an octopus carrying away a trident, the symbol of British naval supremacy. The octopus has robbed the queen of the trident, and thus of her control over the sea.   

The painting alludes to the outset of naval war and Britain’s policy towards refugees. The immediate catalyst for the work was the sinking of the SS Arandora Star, a British ship. In July 1940, under British orders, the vessel had been transporting a load of refugees – considered enemies – to Canada, where they were to be held at internment camps. The ship was attacked by a German submarine, costing over 800 people their lives.

Kokoshka’s choice of the title Loreley is a prescient and ambiguous allusion to the legend of the boatmen on the Rhine who were said to have run aground on Loreley Rock, bewitched and distracted by the mermaid calling from the rock.