File:Wager's Action off Cartagena, 28 May 1708 RMG BHC0348.tiff
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Summary
[edit]Samuel Scott: Wager's Action off Cartagena, 28 May 1708 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Object type |
painting object_type QS:P31,Q3305213 |
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Description |
English: Wager's Action off Cartagena, 28 May 1708 The English painter Samuel Scott (1702-1772) specialised in marine painting and views of London. A strong influence of the art of Willem van de Velde the Younger can be detected, particularly in his early work. This painting refers to Commodore (later Admiral) Charles Wager’s assault on a Spanish treasure fleet off Cartagena in modern-day Colombia on 28 May 1708. Wager’s vessel, the ‘Expedition’, 70 guns, is shown in the centre attacking the Spanish flagship, the ‘San José’, 60 guns. The force of the gunfire seems to blow the Spanish vessel apart in a cloud of smoke and flames, reflected on the water. The other two English ships to the right are the ‘Kingston’, 60 guns, and ‘Portland’, 54 guns. However, Wager was not well supported by his squadron whose captains were court martialled for not having performed their duty, and duly dismissed from their posts (Campbell and Berkenhout, ‘Lives of the British Admirals…’, vol.3 (London, 1785), p.210). Whilst Wager obtained enough from the supporting Spanish ships to make him rich, the ‘San José’ and the bulk of the fleet’s gold, silver and emeralds sank several hundred feet to the seabed, earning her the unofficial title of “holy grail of shipwrecks”. This picture may have been the original used for the design of Wager’s monument in the north transept of Westminster Abbey, completed 1747 by the Flemish-born sculptor Peter Scheemakers, who is recorded in a sale catalogue of 1756 as owning a picture by “Mr Scot (sic)” of very nearly identical size (the present item is in fact two inches wider) entitled “The Taking the Galeons by Sir Charles Wager”. Wager’s death (24 May 1743) and the monument’s unveiling have therefore served as earliest and latest respective dates for its production. Scott seems to have used a drawing by van de Velde as a model for this composition and the ships are probably also based on older models rather than eyewitness accounts of the event. |
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Date | 1743-1747? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Medium | oil on canvas | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dimensions | Painting: 863 x 1244 mm; Frame: 1050 mm x 1403 mm x 75 mm | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Collection |
institution QS:P195,Q7374509 |
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Accession number |
BHC0348 |
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Notes | It will need to be checked for object numbers and its condition activity updated | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
References | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Source/Photographer | http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/11840 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Permission (Reusing this file) |
The original artefact or artwork has been assessed as public domain by age, and faithful reproductions of the two dimensional work are also public domain. No permission is required for reuse for any purpose. The text of this image record has been derived from the Royal Museums Greenwich catalogue and image metadata. Individual data and facts such as date, author and title are not copyrightable, but reuse of longer descriptive text from the catalogue may not be considered fair use. Reuse of the text must be attributed to the "National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London" and a Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-SA-3.0 license may apply if not rewritten. Refer to Royal Museums Greenwich copyright. |
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Identifier InfoField | Acquisition Number: 1937-2061 id number: BHC0348 |
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Collection InfoField | Oil paintings |
Licensing
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This is a faithful photographic reproduction of a two-dimensional, public domain work of art. The work of art itself is in the public domain for the following reason:
The official position taken by the Wikimedia Foundation is that "faithful reproductions of two-dimensional public domain works of art are public domain".
This photographic reproduction is therefore also considered to be in the public domain in the United States. In other jurisdictions, re-use of this content may be restricted; see Reuse of PD-Art photographs for details. |
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current | 07:22, 29 September 2017 | 4,000 × 2,796 (32 MB) | Fæ (talk | contribs) | Royal Museums Greenwich Oil paintings (1747), http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/11840 #1631 |
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