File:Four frigates capturing Spanish treasure ships off Cape Santa Maria, Portugal, 5 October 1804 RMG BHC0535.tiff
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Captions
Summary
[edit]Francis Sartorius: Four frigates capturing Spanish treasure ships off Cape Santa Maria, Portugal, 5 October 1804 | ||||||||||||||||||||
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Artist |
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Author |
Sartorius, Francis |
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Object type |
painting object_type QS:P31,Q3305213 |
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Description |
English: Four frigates capturing Spanish treasure ships off Cape Santa Maria, Portugal, 5 October 1804 This action, technically at a time of peace with Spain, was one of the most controversial of the Napoleonic War. Four Spanish frigates with a rich shipment of gold, silver and other high value cargo from Montevideo were making for Cadiz. The value carried was ultimately destined for France and therefore potentially for use against the British. Four British frigates were sent to intercept and the two squadrons met off Cape Santa Maria, southern Portugal, on 5 October. The senior British captain, Graham Moore of the 44-gun 'Indefatigable', asked the Spanish admiral, Don Jose Bustamenta y Guerra, to surrender. When he refused, action commenced and within ten minutes the Spanish ‘Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes’ (36 guns) had blown up with the loss of all but one officer and 45 men. Half an hour later the Spanish ‘Medea’ (40 guns and their flagship) and ‘Santa Clara’ (40) both surrendered. The Spanish ‘Fama’ (34) tried to escape but also surrendered after she was chased by the British ‘Lively’ (38, Captain Graham Eden Hamond). The total value of the prize taken, at sale, was about £900,000 in 1804 value, one of the largest of the period and equivalent to over £35 million today. British losses were minor: two men killed and four wounded in 'Lively' and three men wounded in 'Amphion' (32, Captain Samuel Sutton). The Spaniards had 388 casualties: two men killed and 10 men wounded in 'Medea', 11 killed and 50 wounded in 'Fama'; seven killed and 20 wounded in 'Santa Clara' and 238 killed in the explosion of the 'Mercedes. All three captured ships were taken into the Navy, 'Medea' becoming the 'Imperieuse' and 'Santa Clara' the 'Leocadia': 'Fama' retained that name as anew British 'Fame' was already being built. Considered an act of piracy in Spain, but a 'necessity of war' in England, the action made all four captains wealthy men but hastened Carlos IV of Spain's formal declaration of war against Britain as an ally of Napoleon on 12 December 1804. Sartorius has arranged the eight ships of the two opposing squadrons across the canvas in pairs. In the right foreground the ‘Lively' fires into the ‘Santa Clara’. Ahead of them is the exploding ‘Mercedes’ with men avoiding the blast out on her bowprit and the stern of the British ‘Amphion’ beyond her. To the left and ahead the British ‘Indefatigable’ and Spanish ‘Medea’, on the right, are in close action. Beyond them the British ‘Medusa’ (32, Captain John Gore) and Spanish ‘Fama’ are also firing at each other. The painting is signed and dated ‘F. Sartorius 1807’, in red, lower right. |
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Date |
1807 date QS:P571,+1807-00-00T00:00:00Z/9 |
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Medium | oil on canvas | |||||||||||||||||||
Dimensions | Frame: 905 mm x 1214 mm x 135 mm;Painting: 610 mm x 915 mm;Weight: 23.2 kg | |||||||||||||||||||
Collection |
institution QS:P195,Q7374509 |
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Current location | ||||||||||||||||||||
Accession number |
BHC0535 |
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Notes | Signed and dated 1807. Exhibited at Royal Naval Exhibition in 1891. Considered an act of piracy in Spain, but a 'necessity of war' in England, the action made all four captains wealthy men but hastened Carlos IV of Spain's formal declaration of war against Britain as an ally of Napoleon on 12 December 1804. Sartorius has arranged the eight ships of the two opposing squadrons across the canvas in pairs. In the right foreground the ‘Lively' fires into the ‘Santa Clara’. Ahead of them is the exploding ‘Mercedes’ with men avoiding the blast out on her bowprit and the stern of the British ‘Amphion’ beyond her. To the left and ahead the British ‘Indefatigable’ and Spanish ‘Medea’, on the right, are in close action. Beyond them the British ‘Medusa’ (32, Captain John Gore) and Spanish ‘Fama’ are also firing at each other. The painting is signed and dated ‘F. Sartorius 1807’, in red, lower right. Another version of practically the same size was lot 264 in Christie's sale of the collection of Professor Sir Albert Richardson on 18-19 September 2013 (he having bought it in Exeter in 1949). This too is signed and dated 'F. Sartorius, 1807', lower right, but for some reason was mistakenly attributed at sale to J.T. Serres. [amended PvdM 9/13] | |||||||||||||||||||
References | ||||||||||||||||||||
Source/Photographer | http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/12027 | |||||||||||||||||||
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 | Greenwich Hospital Collection number: GH17 Loan File Number: Y2000.023 file number: 4G10.031 id number: BHC0535 |
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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. |
Camera location | 40° 25′ 24.55″ N, 3° 41′ 20.61″ W | View this and other nearby images on: OpenStreetMap | 40.423487; -3.689057 |
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current | 09:27, 28 September 2017 | 7,200 × 4,779 (98.44 MB) | Fæ (talk | contribs) | Royal Museums Greenwich Oil paintings (1807), http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/12027 #1565 |
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Width | 7,200 px |
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Height | 4,779 px |
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Compression scheme | Uncompressed |
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Image data location | 140 |
Number of components | 3 |
Number of rows per strip | 4,779 |
Bytes per compressed strip | 103,226,400 |
Data arrangement | chunky format |
- Oil paintings of the Royal Museums Greenwich
- 1807 in art
- Battle of Cape Santa Maria
- Graham Moore (Royal Navy officer)
- HMS Medusa (ship, 1801)
- HMS Fama (ship, 1795)
- HMS Indefatigable (ship, 1784)
- Ships named Medea
- HMS Imperieuse (ship, 1797)
- Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes (ship, 1786)
- HMS Amphion (ship, 1798)
- HMS Lively (ship, 1804)
- Ships named Santa Clara
- HMS Leocadia (ship, 1804)
- Francis Sartorius (the younger)
- Pages with complex technique templates
- Artworks with known accession number
- Artworks with Wikidata item
- Artworks with Wikidata item missing genre
- Artworks with Wikidata item missing author
- Artworks digital representation of 2D work
- CC-PD-Mark
- PD-old-100-expired
- PD-Art (PD-old-100-expired)
- PD-Art missing SDC copyright status
- Files with coordinates missing SDC location of creation
- Images uploaded by Fæ