Description
This album covers Edward Gennys Fanshawe's Baltic service in command of HMS 'Cossack' during the Crimean War, August 1854 - August 1855, and his brief transfer to the 'Hastings' in the Baltic and latterly at Queenstown (Cobh), Ireland, 1855-56, though on her return to England in late 1855 he was invalided ashore until rejoining the ship at Queenstown in January 1856. It also covers his command of the 'Centurion' in the Mediterranean from May 1856 to June 1858, when he was again invalided home. Also included are holiday drawings made in Scotland in 1843 and 1883, Switzerland in 1877 and 1880, and a single drawing of Moulmein, Burma, made in 1846 during his Eastern posting as Commander in the 'Cruizer', 1844-46.
No. 14 in Fanshawe's Baltic and later album, 1843 - 83. Captioned by the artist on the album page below the image, as title. The second of a series of drawings of the Mediterranean fleet's summer cruise, from Malta and back, between 3 June and 7 November 1857. It shows a small white mosque on the coast, against the mountains of north Africa, with figures, presumably close to the city of Tunis itself within the Gulf of Tunis. Tunis occupies the site of ancient Carthage but that city was so effectively destroyed by the Romans, and the port area partly drowned by sea-level change, that it was only beginning to be investigated at this time. Fanshawe and the squadron under Admiral Lord Lyons spent two days there and wrote to his father: 'one day we devoted to Tunis, which is a vile specimen of an Oriental town, a maximum of filth and a minimum of the "Arabian Nights". The next day we went about the ruins of Carthage - I say we because we went in a flock with the Admiral - with a Mr Davis, who is employed by Government [ie the British] to search for antiquities. He has dug up eight tons of tessellated pavement, which is stowed on board the "Curacao", and she has now gone for another instalment on her way to England.' (Fanshawe [1904] p 351).
Image Licence
CC BY-NC-ND
Image Credit
© National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London
Location
Carthage, Tunisia
Country
Tunisia
Medium
Watercolour
Tags
Category
Landscapes & Seascapes
