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. 33 in Fanshawe's Baltic and later album, 1843 - 83. Captioned by the artist on the album page below the image, as title. The view is presumably eastwards along Loch Leven with Glencoe in the right distance (by the white scraped highlight). If so this suggests Fanshawe is looking across the loch from some point east of North Ballachulish rather than from Ballachulish itself , which is on the south side and (though closer to the Glen) probably does not afford this view. Glencoe is a notorious site, as in 1692, there was the premeditated murder of 38 of the Macdonald clan (and the death of 40 more women and children who died of exposure afterwards) by Scottish troops billeted on them by the Crown, and to whom they had extended hospitality, on the grounds that they had not been speedy enough in pledging loyalty to William III and Queen Mary following the 'Glorious Revolution' of 1688. Fanshawe married Jane Cardwell on 11 May 1843, when he was a young Commander RN, and this drawing is one of a group (PAI4700 - 4706) recording their first summer holiday together that summer, though his biography (1904) does not give the exact dates.
Image Licence
CC BY-NC-ND
Image Credit
© National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London
Location
Glencoe, Ballachulish, Scotland
Country
Scotland
Medium
Watercolour
Tags
Category
Landscapes & Seascapes
