Description
A watercolour wash study set in the entrance vestibule of the Painted Hall at Greenwich Hospital. A group seated and standing round a table, centre right, by the pier on the north side of the steps up to the Lower Hall, includes several Greenwich Pensioners, one Chelsea Pensioner in a red coat, a boy in sailor's dress being pulled towards the steps by an older girl, and a toddler beside the Chelsea man (by implication the grandfather). A woman further up the steps is presumably the children's mother, talking to another figure of which only the form is indicated. The Greenwich man standing on the right of the table points towards Turner's 'Battle of Trafalgar' (1823-24) hanging low on the north wall of the vestibule, far right, as does the Chelsea Pensioner, with his stick. Behind, on the side of the stairs hang two unidentifiable half-length portraits. The view extends indistinctly up into the Lower Hall, then the Naval Gallery, where pictures can be seen hanging on the north wall. This is one of a number of sketches for this composition, of which PAH3984 carries the title. As a group they are the only ones so far seen that show Turner's 'Trafalgar' in this position, rather than in the body of the Hall, although it may also be the painting less clearly shown with another skied above it in James Holland's undated oil of the Vestibule (BHC1814). The Holland view also shows others on the stairs and south wall. In broad essentials Burnet's reportage is correct: an article about the Naval Gallery in the 'Penny Magazine' for 6 January 1838 (see PAI8643) clearly describes the Turner as hanging in the position he shows it with its de Loutherbourg pair of the 'Glorious First of June 1794' opposite, though the L. H. Michael image of the Hall of 1865 shows they had been moved up into the centre of the main gallery by that time. No oil painting by Burnet from these sketches is yet recorded by the NMM. Until or unless this is found, it is at least possible to suggest that that they were early ideas for what subsequently became his very different pendant (1835) for Wilkie's 'Chelsea Pensioners reading the Waterloo despatch', showing Greenwich Pensioners celebrating Trafalgar in Greenwich Park (now Apsley House). See also PAH3984 PAH3985, PAH3986 and PAH9661.
Image Licence
CC BY-NC-ND
Image Credit
© National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London
Location
The Painted Hall, Old Royal Naval College, London, England
Country
England
Medium
Watercolour
Tags
Category
People & Society
