Royal, State and Ceremonial Ships
The Bucintoro on Ascension Day, by Canaletto and Guardi. Peter Pett beside the Sovereign of the Seas, painted by Lely. Royal yachts, fleet reviews at Spithead and the regattas of Venice. Ships built to be seen, and painted by the best eyes of their time.
This chapter of Ships in Paintings holds 82 works. For each one you will find the artist and, wherever the records allow, the date and where the original is kept; then what the ship brings to the picture, and the real ship behind it when there is one. See all 1,331 works on one page.
Marea can build any of these ships as a scale model, with the maximum detail the scale permits, finished to be inspected. We can build her as the artist saw her: the same rig, the same sails set, the same colours. It isn’t a copy of a painting. It’s the ship, stepping out of it.
This database was put together by Ai Refloat™, Marea’s own artificial intelligence, from the records of museums, maritime archives and published sources. Ai Refloat is still young & like any teenager, it can be a little volatile and unpredictable at times, but above all, it is learning fast. So this list may well contain mistakes and we welcome the input of everyone who knows these paintings, photographs and ships better than we do: listening, correcting and learning is one of the many ways we work towards perfection in this craft.
When no free image of a work exists, we show instead the museum or the place where the original can be seen.
Have you spotted a mistake? Tell us which painting, photograph or ship, and we will amend it accordingly. Tell us here
The works
Royal and state ships · Painting
Henry Grace à Dieu (Great Harry) Named ship
The Embarkation of Henry VIII at Dover, c. 1520 to 1540
Artist British School, 16th century
Where to see it Royal Collection, Hampton Court Palace (RCIN 405793)
Medium Oil on canvas
Commissioned by Henry VIII and now in the Royal Collection, the picture shows the king and his fleet setting sail from Dover for Calais on 31 May 1520, on the way to meet Francis I at the Field of Cloth of Gold. Henry can be seen standing in the waist of a ship with golden sails, presumably the Henry Grace à Dieu, and the painting was surely meant to show the might of his new royal navy. The ships are drawn out of proportion, perhaps deliberately. It is propaganda in paint, a king arriving by sea as a spectacle.
“an intentional device to convey the impressive nature of this journey”
The real ship The Henry Grace à Dieu, known as the Great Harry, was built at Woolwich in 1512 to 1514 and was in her day the largest warship in the world. She proved top-heavy and rolled in rough seas, was renamed for Edward VI at his accession, and was accidentally destroyed by fire at Woolwich in 1553.
Sources Royal Collection · stories.sal.org.uk · londonremembers.com
Image: British School, 16th century, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Drawing
Henry Grace à Dieu (Great Harry) Named ship
The Henry Grace à Dieu, from the Anthony Roll, 1546
Artist Anthony Anthony (active 1530s to 1540s)
Where to see it Pepys Library, Magdalene College, Cambridge (Pepys 2991)
Medium Drawing on vellum (manuscript roll)
The Anthony Roll presents Henry VIII's greatest ship, the Great Harry, with sails furled, pennants fluttering and open gunports that make plain her firepower. The roll was a working record of the ships of the Tudor navy, presented to the king in 1546 by Anthony Anthony, a naval ordnance official, yet it has the splendour of a heraldic pageant. Charles II gave two of the rolls to Samuel Pepys in 1680, and this drawing became the model for later engravings of Henry's flagship, the image by which she is remembered.
The real ship The Henry Grace à Dieu was built at Woolwich in 1512 to 1514, in her day the largest warship in the world; she proved top-heavy and rolled in rough seas. Renamed for Edward VI at his accession, she was accidentally destroyed by fire at Woolwich in 1553.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia · londonremembers.com
Image: Anthony Anthony, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Drawing
Mary Rose Named ship
The Mary Rose, from the Anthony Roll, 1546
Artist Anthony Anthony (active 1530s to 1540s)
Where to see it Pepys Library, Magdalene College, Cambridge (Pepys 2991)
Medium Drawing on vellum (manuscript roll)
Anthony Anthony, an official of the Ordnance, presented Henry VIII in 1546 with three rolls, more than fifteen yards in all, picturing the 58 ships of the king's Army by the Sea with their guns and men. The Mary Rose appears at 700 tonnes with 91 guns, and the roll holds the only contemporary picture of her; she had sunk in the Solent in July 1545, before the roll was presented. Since her hull was raised in 1982, the roll and the wreck have been compared, a courtly inventory set against the ship itself.
“the only illustration and final report of the Mary Rose from its active life”
The real ship Launched in 1511, the Mary Rose served Henry VIII for 34 years and was substantially rebuilt in 1536. She saw her last action on 19 July 1545, when she sank in the Solent; the wreck was found in 1971, raised on 11 October 1982 and is displayed at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.
Sources maryrose.org · Wikipedia
Image: Anthony Anthony, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Painting
Sovereign of the Seas Named ship
Peter Pett and the Sovereign of the Seas, c. 1645 to 1650
Artist Sir Peter Lely (1618 to 1680)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (BHC2949)
Medium Oil on canvas
Peter Pett stands in a black gown holding a pair of dividers, the mark of a family of ship designers and builders, while the stern of the great ship he built fills the left half of the canvas. Her carved stern carried an emblematic programme devised by the dramatist Thomas Heywood: Victory, Jason, Hercules and Neptune gathered to promote Charles I's claim to the sovereignty of the seas. Lely painted the man; the ship is by another hand, possibly Isaac Sailmaker. Portrait and vessel make one statement, a shipwright dynasty and its masterpiece.
“the most powerful ship of her day”
The real ship Built by Peter Pett at Woolwich in 1637 to the designs of his father Phineas, the Sovereign of the Seas was the prototype for the English 100-gun first-rates, each brass gun embossed with a motto claiming Edgar's sceptre of the seas. Renamed Royal Sovereign in 1660 and rebuilt again in 1685, she fought in all three Dutch wars and was accidentally burnt at Chatham in 1696.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Art UK
Royal and state ships · Print
Sovereign of the Seas Named ship
'Sovereign of the Seas' (1637), mid-17th century
Artist John Payne (1607 to 1647)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAJ2441)
Medium Coloured engraving
Payne's engraving carried the image of Charles I's great ship to a wide public. The Dutch called her the golden devil for her black and gold, and her gilded carving alone cost over £6,600, as much as the hull of a two-decker. She was the first ship with three full gun decks, carrying 102 bronze guns on the king's orders instead of the 90 planned, and so large that two smaller ships were built from her waste timbers. Her building was part of the king's plan to overawe the Dutch and the Spanish, and the print served the same purpose.
“the most magnificent ship of her era”
The real ship Designed in 1634 by Phineas Pett and built at Woolwich, she entered service in 1638, first fought at the Kentish Knock on 28 September 1652, was renamed Royal Sovereign in 1660 and served through the Dutch wars and at Beachy Head and Barfleur. She accidentally caught fire at Chatham on 27 January 1696.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Royal and state ships · Drawing
The king's pink Unnamed
The Departure of Charles II from Scheveningen, 23 May 1660
Artist Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633 to 1707)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAH1725)
Medium Graphite, grey wash and watercolour
Drawn on the spot and in haste, the museum believes: boats, carriages and people jam the shore at Scheveningen as Charles II, standing on a pink, takes leave of Elizabeth of Bohemia, the Princess Royal, the young Prince of Orange and the States deputies. The pink lies hauled up on the right, three crowns for his three kingdoms on her mast tops. From here he went out in the Earl of Sandwich's barge to the Naseby, which he renamed Royal Charles before sailing for England. It is the Restoration seen from the sand.
The vessels A pink was a small Dutch fishing vessel. This one, hauled up on the beach at Scheveningen and marked with three crowns on her mast tops, served as the platform from which Charles II took his leave on 23 May 1660.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Royal and state ships · Drawing
Royal Charles (ex-Naseby) Named ship
The 'Royal Charles' Under Way, May 1660
Artist Willem van de Velde the Elder (1611 to 1693)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAH1723)
Medium Pencil and watercolour with wash
The elder Van de Velde drew the ship that carried Charles II back to his kingdom, seen from the weather quarter, close-hauled on the starboard tack, with the royal standard at the main and streamers at the yardarms. The museum calls it an accurate drawing with disfiguring corrections, made probably as the ship left the Dutch coast with the Restoration squadron, so we watch him chase a moving subject. Seven years later the Dutch would carry the same ship off from the Medway: this drawing catches her at the proudest hour of her royal life.
The real ship Designed and built at Woolwich by Peter Pett as the Naseby and altered during construction into a first-rate fit for a fleet flagship, she was renamed Royal Charles by Charles II and the Duke of York on 23 May 1660. The Dutch captured her in the Raid on the Medway on 12 June 1667 and took her to Hellevoetsluis, where she was auctioned for scrap in 1673.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Royal and state ships · Drawing
Royal yacht, possibly the Mary Named ship
An English Royal Yacht, c. 1677
Artist Willem van de Velde the Elder (1611 to 1693)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Robert Lehman Collection (1975.1.810)
Medium Pencil, brush and grey ink and grey wash
The elder Van de Velde knew the rigging and habits of ships from first-hand observation, and this sheet may show the English royal yacht Mary, in which William of Orange travelled to Holland after his wedding to Princess Mary in 1677. The Met admires its spirited, curving lines, which give the drawing movement and brio. It is a wedding voyage, if the identification is right, caught in a few rapid strokes by a draughtsman who had drawn ships all his life.
“spirited, curvy lines, which give the drawing a sense of movement and brio”
The real ship Royal Museums Greenwich records a royal yacht Mary of 1677; the Met suggests this is the yacht in which William of Orange sailed to Holland after his marriage that year.
Sources The Met · Royal Museums Greenwich
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where the original is kept. Photo: Arad, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Royal and state ships · Painting
Royal Escape (ex-Surprise) Named ship
The Yacht 'Royal Escape' Close Hauled in a Breeze, late 17th century
Artist Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633 to 1707)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (BHC3600)
Medium Oil painting
A humble collier in a lively sea, yet she carried a king. As the Surprise she took Charles II to France after his defeat by Cromwell at Worcester in September 1651, and at his restoration in 1660 he bought her, commissioned her as a royal yacht and renamed her Royal Escape. He kept her moored in the Thames opposite the Palace of Whitehall as a reminder to himself and his subjects. Van de Velde paints her among other shipping, a modest hull carrying the whole romance of the king's flight.
“as a reminder to himself and his subjects”
The real ship Formerly the coasting collier Surprise, in which Charles II escaped to France in 1651, she was bought by the king in 1660, commissioned as a royal yacht and moored in the Thames opposite the Palace of Whitehall.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Willem van de Velde the Younger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Drawing
HMS Tiger and the royal yachts Named ship
Visit of Charles II to the 'Tiger' at Woolwich: The 'Tiger' Lying To, Surrounded by Yachts, 1681
Artist Willem van de Velde the Elder (1611 to 1693)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAH1872)
Medium Graphite, grey wash and watercolour
In 1681 Charles II visited the Tiger at Woolwich, and the elder Van de Velde, then about seventy, recorded the scene in a long panoramic sheet. The Tiger, seen from slightly above her starboard beam, is getting under way with the royal standard at the main, and around her the artist names the royal yachts by inscription: Charlotte, Kitchen, Henrietta, Cleveland, Isabella. It is a roll call of the king's yachts, the vessels that made the Restoration court a court afloat.
The real ship The Tiger was a warship of Charles II's navy, visited by the king at Woolwich in 1681; around her lay royal yachts of the Stuart court, among them the Charlotte, Kitchen, Henrietta, Cleveland and Isabella.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Royal and state ships · Painting
Royal yacht Mary Named ship
The 'Mary', Yacht, Arriving with Princess Mary at Gravesend in a Fresh Breeze, 12 February 1689
Artist Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633 to 1707)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, Caird Collection (BHC0328)
Medium Oil on canvas
Within three months of William's landing in 1688, Princess Mary came over from Briel to join him, and Van de Velde shows the yacht named for her about to anchor in Gravesend Reach, taking in her sails. The princess is shown in her stern, the central point of the picture, and at the masthead flies the white standard of the 1688 revolution. Around her are wherries, official barges, three other English royal yachts and over a dozen Dutch vessels, some firing salutes. A revolution arrives by water, under a fresh breeze.
“For the Protestant Religion and the Liberty of England”
The real ship Royal Museums Greenwich identifies the yacht as the Mary of 1677, one of the royal yachts of the later Stuart navy.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Willem van de Velde the Younger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Painting
Royal yacht Mary Named ship
A Royal Yacht, Possibly the 'Mary', 1707 to 1720
Artist L. de Man (active 1707 to 1720)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, Macpherson Collection (BHC1007)
Medium Oil on canvas
A small smack-rigged royal yacht, thought to be the Mary, fires a salute from her port side close inshore, the Union flag at her stern, while two boats full of figures come alongside and another ship answers in the distance. On the shore two figures carry baskets, presumably for shellfish, and a small cargo lighter sails by. De Man was a Dutch painter who worked in England from about 1707 to 1720, partly at or near Deptford, and he shows the royal yacht not in grand review but in the everyday ceremony of the river.
The real ship Royal Museums Greenwich identifies her, tentatively, as the royal yacht Mary of 1677, one of the yachts based on the lower Thames in the early eighteenth century.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Royal and state ships · Painting
Racing gondolas and ceremonial boats of the Venetian regatta Unnamed
Regatta on the Grand Canal in Honour of Frederick IV, King of Denmark, 1711
Artist Luca Carlevarijs (1663 to 1730)
Where to see it J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles (86.PA.599)
Medium Oil on canvas
In the bitterly cold winter of 1708 to 1709 Frederick IV of Denmark came to Venice, formally incognito as the Count of Oldenburg, and stayed nine weeks, going to the opera, buying glass and visiting the Arsenal. One of the highlights of his stay was a grand regatta on the Grand Canal held in his honour, and Carlevarijs recorded it, signing and dating the canvas on the stern of a boat, MDCCXI. The King appears in a gondola rowed by eight oarsmen beside a cavalier, enjoying the spectacle as the boats of the regatta crowd the canal between the palaces.
The vessels The boats are Venetian gondolas and regatta craft on the Grand Canal; the King's gondola is rowed by eight oarsmen. None is individually named.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Luca Carlevarijs, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Painting
The French ambassador's boats at the Molo Unnamed
The Reception of the French Ambassador in Venice (The French Ambassador's Arrival in Venice), c. 1726 to 1727
Artist Canaletto (1697 to 1768)
Where to see it State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg
Medium Oil on canvas
Louis XIV had broken off relations with Venice in 1709, and only in 1723 did Louis XV send a new ambassador. To commemorate the renewed friendship, Count Jacques-Vincent Languet de Gergy commissioned two canvases from Canaletto, his first major commission. Here the Count disembarks onto the quay before the Doge's Palace and is greeted by officials of the Republic. Some scholars see Carlevarijs's picture of a French embassy arriving in 1706 as the model. Its pendant showed the Bucintoro returning to the Molo; both went to Russia in the 1760s.
The vessels The boats are the ceremonial craft that brought the ambassador to the Molo; they are not individually named.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikipedia (RU)
Royal and state ships · Painting
Bucintoro Named ship
Bucentaur's Return to the Pier by the Palazzo Ducale, 1728 to 1729
Artist Canaletto (1697 to 1768)
Where to see it Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow
Medium Oil on canvas
One of Canaletto's earliest treatments of the subject, dated 1728 to 1729, just as the new Bucintoro, launched in January 1728, entered service. The museum describes a lively festive scene, gondolas darting about and a crowded embankment, with the Doge's golden vessel standing by the pier beneath the bell tower and the Doge's Palace. The picture was commissioned by a French ambassador and forms a pair with a canvas in the Hermitage. Seen here in her first seasons, the ship is as new as the painter's fame.
“a lively, festive scene with gondolas darting about, a crowded embankment and the Doge's golden vessel”
The real ship The last Bucintoro was built at the Venetian Arsenale under the naval architect Stefano Conti, with carving by Antonio Corradini; launched on 12 January 1728, she first served at the Marriage of the Sea in May 1729. About 35 metres long, with 42 oars pulled by 168 rowers chosen from the Arsenale workers, she was destroyed by the French in 1798, her carvings burnt on San Giorgio Maggiore and her hull finally broken up in 1824.
Sources Google Arts & Culture · Wikimedia Commons · treccani.it
Royal and state ships · Painting
Bucintoro Named ship
The Bucintoro Returning to the Molo on Ascension Day after the Ceremony of Wedding the Adriatic, 1730s
Artist Canaletto (1697 to 1768)
Where to see it The Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle
Medium Oil on canvas
On a canvas more than two metres wide, the state barge brings the Doge and members of the Senate back to the quayside in front of the Doge's Palace after the Sposalizio del Mare, the marriage of the Republic to the Adriatic. Ambassadorial gondolas attend her, and the gondola in the foreground carries the French royal arms, which may suggest the picture was commissioned by the French ambassador, the Comte de Gergy. Here the Bucintoro is diplomacy as well as ritual: every embassy afloat pays court to the Republic's ship.
The real ship The last Bucintoro was built at the Venetian Arsenale under the naval architect Stefano Conti, with carving by Antonio Corradini; launched on 12 January 1728, she first served at the Marriage of the Sea in May 1729. About 35 metres long, with 42 oars pulled by 168 rowers chosen from the Arsenale workers, she was destroyed by the French in 1798, her carvings burnt on San Giorgio Maggiore and her hull finally broken up in 1824.
Sources Art UK · Wikimedia Commons · treccani.it
Royal and state ships · Painting
Bucintoro Named ship
The Bacino di San Marco on Ascension Day, c. 1733 to 1734
Artist Canaletto (1697 to 1768)
Where to see it Royal Collection, London (RCIN 404417)
Medium Oil on canvas
Canaletto shows the Doge's barge returning to the Molo after the Wedding of the Sea, when the Bucintoro was rowed out into the Adriatic and the Doge cast a ring blessed by the Patriarch into the waters. The ship is the whole reason for the gathering, the fixed point of the spectacle. The picture belonged to Consul Joseph Smith, the greatest collector in Venice, before George III bought almost his entire collection in 1762, and so the proudest ship of the Venetian Republic came to hang in a British palace.
“the Doge cast a ring blessed by the Patriarch into the waters, symbolising the marriage of Venice to the sea”
The real ship The last Bucintoro was built at the Venetian Arsenale under the naval architect Stefano Conti, with carving by Antonio Corradini; launched on 12 January 1728, she first served at the Marriage of the Sea in May 1729. About 35 metres long, with 42 oars pulled by 168 rowers chosen from the Arsenale workers, she was destroyed by the French in 1798, her carvings burnt on San Giorgio Maggiore and her hull finally broken up in 1824.
Sources Royal Collection · treccani.it
Royal and state ships · Painting
Regatta boats and bissone on the Grand Canal Unnamed
Venice: A Regatta on the Grand Canal, c. 1735
Artist Canaletto (1697 to 1768)
Where to see it The National Gallery, London (NG938)
Medium Oil on canvas
The earlier of the National Gallery's two regattas is all noise and sunlight. Spectators in the foreground raise their arms and point, and a masked figure in a black cape waves a white cloth as the racers speed up the canal; wealthy Venetians sit in colourful rowing boats and ordinary folk in smaller gondolas, while buildings hang out brightly coloured cloths. The regatta drew crowds of Venetians and foreign visitors, and Canaletto's sharply receding canal pulls the whole city into the race.
“wealthy Venetians in colourful rowing boats and ordinary folk in smaller gondolas”
The vessels The regatta was raced in light boats called battelli up the middle of the Grand Canal, while wealthy Venetians watched from large, colourful rowing boats called bissone and ordinary folk from smaller craft.
Sources National Gallery
Royal and state ships · Painting
Bissone and racing gondolas of the Venetian regatta Unnamed
A Regatta on the Grand Canal, c. 1740
Artist Canaletto (1697 to 1768)
Where to see it The National Gallery, London (NG4454)
Medium Oil on canvas
The Republic's regatta brought the whole city to the Grand Canal. Up the middle race the one-oared gondolas, two of them swinging round the bend tilted and almost touching, while lavishly decorated bissone carry nobles reclining on velvet cushions and rowers in colourful uniforms. At the lower left stands the Macchina della Regatta, a temporary floating pavilion of painted wood, plaster and papier mâché where the prizes were given. Canaletto's steep perspective drives the eye down the course, and every masked spectator seems to lean towards the race.
“Lavishly decorated bissone (eight- or ten-oared boats) carry Venetian nobles, who recline on velvet cushions”
The vessels Bissone were lavishly decorated eight- or ten-oared boats that carried Venetian nobles at the regatta, some adorned with mythological figures and animals; the race itself was rowed in light one-oared gondolas called battelli.
Sources National Gallery
Royal and state ships · Painting
Bucintoro Named ship
The Bucintoro, c. 1745 to 1750
Artist Canaletto (1697 to 1768)
Where to see it Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, on deposit at the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, Barcelona (inv. 77, 1962.1)
Medium Oil on canvas
Canaletto sets the red and gold galley moored among gondolas and other boats beside the Piazzetta, the moment of her return to the quay at San Marco, and builds the whole view along a diagonal from the Doge's Palace to the great bulk of the Salute. The museum counts almost a dozen known versions of this composition, original and studio, proof of how much Canaletto's clients wanted this ship. Warm light and a wide sky make the barge feel less a vessel than a jewel set into the city.
The real ship The last Bucintoro was built at the Venetian Arsenale under the naval architect Stefano Conti and carved by Antonio Corradini, with a lion on the prow and a figure of Justice. About 35 metres long, with 42 oars pulled by 168 rowers chosen from the Arsenale workers, she was destroyed by the French in 1798 and her hull finally broken up in 1824.
Sources museothyssen.org · Wikimedia Commons · treccani.it
Royal and state ships · Painting
HMY Royal Caroline Named ship
The 'Royal Caroline', 1750
Artist John Cleveley the Elder (c. 1712 to 1777)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC3598)
Medium Oil on canvas
Signed and inscribed 'Royal Caroline Yacht' in the year she entered service, this is a broadside portrait of the new principal royal yacht, seen from off the starboard bow in full sail with the red and blue ensigns and the common pendant. Cleveley worked as a shipwright at Deptford, where she was built, and often painted ships of that yard; his eye for rigging and carving is a shipwright's eye. Eleven years later, sumptuously refitted and renamed Royal Charlotte, the same yacht would bring the future queen of George III to England.
“‘Royal Caroline Yacht’. J Cleveley 1750”
The real ship Designed by Joseph Allin and built at Deptford, the Royal Caroline was launched on 29 January 1750 and replaced the Carolina as principal royal yacht. Renamed Royal Charlotte in 1761, she carried Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz to England to marry George III, a voyage on which westerly gales blew the squadron three times to the Norwegian coast; she was broken up in 1820.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: John Cleveley the Elder, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Painting
Jousting boats on the Tiber under the papal flag Unnamed
A Sporting Contest on the Tiber, 1750
Artist Joseph Vernet (1714 to 1789)
Where to see it National Gallery, London (NG236)
Medium Oil on canvas
Before the Ports of France, Vernet worked in Rome, and this was one of four paintings he sent from there to the Paris Salon of 1750. From the west bank of the Tiber, looking to the Castel Sant'Angelo, crowds watch a river joust, a popular entertainment for great births, marriages and royal visits. Two boats with seven oarsmen each, in the caps of artisans, square up, the left one flying the arms of Pope Benedict XIV; a smaller boat with a blue flag lies between. The remains of Nero's bridge break the water, and the three bright figures in front are probably Vernet and the Duke and Duchess of Nivernais.
“river jousts were a popular entertainment associated with important births and marriages and the visits of monarchs to cities”
The vessels The jousting boats are light rowing boats, each manned by seven oarsmen whose caps suggest they were artisans; they are unnamed.
Sources National Gallery
Royal and state ships · Painting
The Solide, flagship of the port of Toulon, the barque Hirondelle, and the galleys Named ship
The Old Port of Toulon, seen from beside the Victualling Stores (Le Port vieux de Toulon. La vue en est prise du côté des magasins aux vivres), 1756
Artist Joseph Vernet (1714 to 1789)
Where to see it Musée national de la Marine, Paris (INV 8298, deposit of the Musée du Louvre)
Medium Oil on canvas
Sunset over the Old Port throws long shadows across the quay, where wine casks, sheep, an unruly ox and a pig caught by the tail wait to be loaded into a boat for the crews. Chained convicts under guard work on the right. In the middle distance mast timber is held under water in weighted caissons, and eleven galleys lie moored, some under awnings that sheltered the convicts who lived aboard. At the centre floats the port's flagship under the white flag. Researchers have identified her as the Solide, and the lateen barque in the right foreground as the Hirondelle.
The real ship The Solide served from 1750 as the flagship of the port of Toulon; commanded by an officer, she controlled access to the Old Port and hosted the councils that ran the naval base. The Hirondelle was a lateen-rigged barque. Eleven galleys, some housing convicts aboard, lie moored in the view.
Sources Wikipedia (FR) · Louvre
Royal and state ships · Painting
The French fleet and shipping in the roadstead of Toulon Unnamed
View of the Town and Roadstead of Toulon (La Ville et la Rade de Toulon), 1756
Artist Joseph Vernet (1714 to 1789)
Where to see it Musée du Louvre, Paris (INV 8297)
Medium Oil on canvas
The second view of Toulon is a panorama from the heights of Mont Faron down to the port, showing what made the place a great war port: a roadstead naturally sheltered from outside eyes and from the prevailing winds. The great roadstead lies far left in the distance, two walled darses shelter the ships behind their bastions, and in the foreground a Provençal country house celebrates the sweetness of life on the hillside. Signed at Toulon in 1756, the original hangs in the Louvre, while the Toulon museum shows a full-size copy that took ten years and 24,000 hours to paint.
“La rade de Toulon est la plus belle et la plus excellente de la mer Méditerranée, de l'avis de toutes les nations.”
The vessels Toulon was the base of the French Mediterranean fleet; its two darses (enclosed basins) sheltered warships under the guns of the fortifications. The ships in the view are not named.
Sources Louvre · Musée national de la Marine · Wikipedia
Royal and state ships · Painting
HMS Cambridge and HMS Royal George Named ship
The 'Royal George' at Deptford Showing the Launch of the 'Cambridge', 1757
Artist John Cleveley the Elder (c. 1712 to 1777)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, Caird Collection (BHC3602)
Medium Oil on canvas
Cleveley worked as a shipwright in Deptford's Royal Dockyard and painted the yard he knew. Here the new Cambridge is floated out of the double dry dock where she was built, on 21 October 1755, while the Royal George, in truth launched a year later at Woolwich, lies at anchor beside her. A ceremonial barge with trumpeters, an Admiralty yacht, a Dutch coaster and a Thames lighter crowd the river below the Master Shipwright's house, and two figures wave their hats. Cleveley bent the facts to bring the navy's new ships into one triumphant day.
The real ship HMS Cambridge, an 80-gun third-rate built at Deptford Dockyard and launched on 21 October 1755, served in the expedition against Guadeloupe and at the taking of Havana in 1762, and later became the guardship at Plymouth. The 100-gun Royal George, shown beside her, was launched at Woolwich in 1756.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: John Cleveley the Elder, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Painting
Bucintoro Named ship
Bucintoro at the Molo on Ascension Day, 1760
Artist Canaletto (1697 to 1768)
Where to see it Dulwich Picture Gallery, London (DPG599)
Medium Oil on canvas
A late work, inscribed by Canaletto on the back of the canvas in 1760. The Bucintoro lies at the quay near San Marco on Ascension Day, the day the Doge cast a gold ring into the water to mark Venice's connection with the sea and its power over it. For Dulwich the ceremony was at once religious and political, and it drew great crowds along the canals to watch, to shop at the market stalls in the Piazza and to celebrate. At the centre of it all is the ship, gilded from end to end.
“the entire length of the Bucintoro (thirty-five metres) was covered in gold leaf”
The real ship The last Bucintoro was built at the Venetian Arsenale under the naval architect Stefano Conti, with carving by Antonio Corradini; launched on 12 January 1728, she first served at the Marriage of the Sea in May 1729. About 35 metres long, with 42 oars pulled by 168 rowers chosen from the Arsenale workers, she was destroyed by the French in 1798, her carvings burnt on San Giorgio Maggiore and her hull finally broken up in 1824.
Sources dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk · treccani.it
Royal and state ships · Painting
A ship of the line on the stocks and a ship hove down for careening at Rochefort Unnamed
View of the Port of Rochefort, taken from the Magasin des Colonies (Vue du port de Rochefort, prise du Magasin des colonies), 1762 to 1763
Artist Joseph Vernet (1714 to 1789)
Where to see it Musée national de la Marine, Paris (INV 8306, deposit of the Musée du Louvre)
Medium Oil on canvas
Vernet took this view of the royal dockyard one morning from the Magasin des Colonies, the warehouse for goods coming from and going to the colonies. The Royal Ropeworks run along the right; in the distance a fire burns under a ship hove down for careening and a warship rises on the stocks. In front, hemp is landed for the ropewalk and coils of rope are carried to a ship. The town appears only as the bell tower of Saint-Louis. At the Salon of 1763 Diderot called the picture very beautiful, holding artists' attention by the very thanklessness of its subject.
“il fixe l'attention des artistes par l'ingratitude du sujet”
The vessels Rochefort was a royal dockyard of the French navy, whose Royal Ropeworks made the cordage for the fleet and whose Magasin des Colonies stored goods to and from the colonies. The ships shown, one on the stocks and one careening, are not named.
Sources Louvre · Wikipedia (FR) · fr.wikisource.org
Royal and state ships · Painting
Bucintoro Named ship
The Departure of the Bucintoro, c. 1765 to 1780
Artist Francesco Guardi (1712 to 1793)
Where to see it Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon
Medium Oil on canvas
Guardi combines two Venetian themes here: a sweeping view of the quay with its famous buildings, set along a gentle diagonal to the left, and the departure of the Bucintoro, which dominates the right of the canvas under a red and gold banner bearing the winged lion of Saint Mark. Gondolas and boats of every kind accompany the barge on her route. The Gulbenkian Guardis were acquired between 1907 and 1921, and here his loose, expressive brushwork turns a state ceremony into a city of light and water with its ship at the centre.
“The Bucintoro, the Doge's ceremonial galley, symbolised the Republic's maritime power and was used for official ceremonies like the celebration of Ascension Day”
The real ship The last Bucintoro was built at the Venetian Arsenale under the naval architect Stefano Conti, with carving by Antonio Corradini; launched on 12 January 1728, she first served at the Marriage of the Sea in May 1729. About 35 metres long, with 42 oars pulled by 168 rowers chosen from the Arsenale workers, she was destroyed by the French in 1798, her carvings burnt on San Giorgio Maggiore and her hull finally broken up in 1824.
Sources museothyssen.org · treccani.it
Image: Francesco Guardi; photo Sailko, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Drawing
HMS Royal Oak Named ship
George III Reviewing the Fleet at Spithead, 22 June 1773, Depicting HMS 'Royal Oak'
Artist John Cleveley the Younger (1747 to 1786)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAH9497)
Medium Watercolour
One of a set of three watercolours of the great review at Spithead in June 1773, at which the young Cleveley was almost certainly present. George III took great interest in the event and stayed at Portsmouth for several days. Cleveley, son of the marine painter John Cleveley and twin brother of the marine artist Robert, gives the Royal Oak her place in the assembled fleet, a king's review recorded by a painter barely in his twenties.
The real ship HMS Royal Oak was one of the ships of the line assembled at Spithead for George III's review of June 1773.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: John Cleveley the Younger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Painting
Oiseau Named ship
The Outer Harbour of Brest (L'Avant port de Brest), 1773
Artist Henri-Joseph van Blarenberghe (1750 to 1826)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1978.493)
Medium Oil on canvas
Vernet's royal series of French ports was abandoned before he reached Brest, and the secretary of state for the navy briefly revived the project by engaging Louis-Nicolas van Blarenberghe. He worked from gouaches of the harbour and naval facilities made in the first months of 1773, helped by his son Henri, who most likely painted this canvas. At its heart is a ship called the Oiseau, being readied for sea by convicts in red uniform, bound for France's Indian Ocean colonies, where, the Met reminds us, enslaved labour fed the finances of the mother country. The orderly harbour carries that hard truth beneath its polish.
The real ship The Oiseau was a French vessel fitting out at Brest in 1773 for a voyage to France's colonies in the Indian Ocean; the Met records that convicts in red uniform were readying her for sea.
Image: Henri-Joseph van Blarenberghe, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Painting
Bucintoro Named ship
The Departure of the Bucintoro for the Lido on Ascension Day (Le Départ du Bucentaure vers le Lido de Venise, le jour de l'Ascension), c. 1775 to 1780
Artist Francesco Guardi (1712 to 1793)
Where to see it Musée du Louvre, Paris (INV 20009)
Medium Oil on canvas
Part of Guardi's series of twelve paintings of the ceremonies organised in 1763 for the election of Doge Alvise IV Mocenigo, ten of which are in the Louvre. The series, painted between 1775 and 1780, was based on Brustolon's engravings after drawings by Canaletto, yet Guardi's flickering touch turns the procession into something fleeting. Painted barely two decades before the Republic fell, the barge setting out for the Lido reads as a last bright parade of a state that would soon lose both its ship and its independence.
The real ship The last Bucintoro was built at the Venetian Arsenale under the naval architect Stefano Conti, with carving by Antonio Corradini; launched on 12 January 1728, she first served at the Marriage of the Sea in May 1729. About 35 metres long, with 42 oars pulled by 168 rowers chosen from the Arsenale workers, she was destroyed by the French in 1798, her carvings burnt on San Giorgio Maggiore and her hull finally broken up in 1824.
Sources Louvre · pop.culture.gouv.fr · treccani.it
Image: Francesco Guardi, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Painting
HMS Venerable Named ship
Launch of the 'Venerable', 74 Guns, at Blackwall, 1784
Artist Francis Holman (1729 to 1784)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, Green Blackwall Collection (BHC1869)
Medium Oil on canvas
Holman paints John Perry's yard, later Green's, at Blackwall on the north bank of the Thames below Greenwich, in what was probably its greatest year, when Perry had three 74-gun ships and two 44s building for the navy as well as an East Indiaman and a West Indiaman. The picture has long been known as the launch of the Venerable, and the new warship is the reason for the day. A launch picture celebrates craft as much as war, and Holman lets us feel the pride of a private yard building for the fleet.
The real ship HMS Venerable, a 74-gun third-rate ship of the line, was launched on 19 April 1784 at Blackwall Yard.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Royal and state ships · Painting
HMS Queen Charlotte Named ship
The 'Queen Charlotte' at the Review at Spithead, 1790
Artist William Anderson (1757 to 1837)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC2260)
Medium Oil on canvas
Lord Howe's new flagship fires a salute in honour of the admiral, who is being rowed over in his barge in the foreground, while other warships lie at anchor as far as the horizon to show the strength of the navy. Anderson, a Scot who trained as a shipwright, painted under the strong influence of the seventeenth-century Dutch masters. The picture has long been called a royal review, though Greenwich suggests it more likely shows ships of the Channel Fleet at Portsmouth during the Spanish Armament crisis of 1790, a navy on show at a moment of threatened war.
The real ship HMS Queen Charlotte, a first-rate launched at Chatham on 15 April 1790, was Howe's flagship at the Glorious First of June in 1794 and the mutineers' flagship during the Spithead mutiny of 1797. She caught fire and was lost off Capraia on 17 March 1800.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: William Anderson, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Painting
Bretagne and Républicain Named ship
View of the Interior of the Port of Brest (Vue de l'intérieur du port de Brest), 1794
Artist Jean-François Hue (1751 to 1823)
Where to see it Musée du Louvre, Paris, on deposit at the Musée national de la Marine, Paris
Medium Oil on canvas
Vernet's royal series of ports was left unfinished, and in 1791 the Constituent Assembly charged his pupil Hue with completing it, now including Brest, with 10,000 livres for the task. Hue took his view from the east bank of the Penfeld near the Pontaniou dry dock, and among the crowded masts two great ships of the line can be picked out, the Bretagne and the Républicain. The tricolour flags were probably not in the first version, but added before the canvas went to the Salon of 1795: a fleet repainted for a new regime.
The real ship Brest, on the river Penfeld, was the great Atlantic naval harbour of France. The Bretagne and the Républicain, both identifiable in the picture, were ships of the line of the French navy at Brest in the revolutionary years.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikipedia (FR)
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Musée national de la Marine, Paris, where the original is kept. Photo: Freepenguin, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Painting
The Channel Fleet at Spithead Unnamed
Royal Visit to the Fleet at Spithead, 26 June 1794, c. 1800
Artist Robert Cleveley (1747 to 1809)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0475)
Medium Oil on panel
The same royal visit that Briggs made into a quarterdeck drama, Robert Cleveley painted as weather. In this small panel the sea and cloudy sky merge in pale greys, and the smoke of the salutes blurs the horizon and hides the official ceremony, pushed far into the background. Onlookers watch from a small vessel in the left foreground across the calm water. The museum sees an atmospheric treatment of a formal subject, and it feels true to anyone who has watched a fleet fire a salute: the ships vanish in their own smoke.
“Smoke from the salutes being fired blurs the horizon and hides the official action”
The vessels The fleet that had fought the Glorious First of June under Howe lay at Spithead in June 1794, when George III came aboard the flagship Queen Charlotte to present Howe with a diamond sword.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: Robert Cleveley, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Print
Commerce de Marseille Named ship
Le Commerce de Marseille, French Ship of 118 Guns (Le Commerce de Marseille, Vaisseau Français de 118 Canons), 1801
Artist Gaetano Canali and John Sewell
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAH9410)
Medium Engraving and etching, coloured
Dubbed the finest ship of the century, the Commerce de Marseille was paid for by a gift from the Marseille chamber of commerce and built at Toulon to the plans of Jacques-Noël Sané. She never fought for France. She came under British control at the Siege of Toulon in 1793, and when the French retook the city she left the harbour for Portsmouth. This print of 1801 shows her moored in placid water with her sails closely furled, the French flag still at her mizzen, a lost French pride held up to British eyes as a portrait.
The real ship Laid down at the Toulon Arsenal in September 1786 and launched on 7 August 1788, she came under British control at the Siege of Toulon in 1793, was used briefly as a storeship, was badly damaged in a storm in 1795, and lay as a hulk at Portsmouth until broken up in February 1802.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Royal and state ships · Painting
Nelson's funeral barge Unnamed
Nelson's Funeral Procession on the Thames, 9 January 1806, 1807
Artist Daniel Turner
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (BHC0569)
Medium Oil on canvas
After lying in state at the Royal Hospital for Seamen at Greenwich, Nelson was carried up the Thames to Whitehall Stairs on a black-canopied funeral barge, accompanied by more than sixty boats, among them the barge of the Lord Mayor and the Admiralty and City livery barges. Inside lay four coffins, the innermost made from the mainmast of the French flagship L'Orient, destroyed at the Nile. Turner's panorama turns the river into a cortège, the whole maritime City of London following the admiral on the water.
The vessels Nelson's body travelled on a black-canopied funeral barge, escorted by more than sixty boats including the Lord Mayor's barge and the Admiralty and City livery barges, the ceremonial rowing craft of the Thames.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Royal and state ships · Painting
USS Franklin Named ship
The U.S. Ship Franklin, with a View of the Bay of New York, 1820s or 1830s
Artist Thomas Thompson (1775 to 1852)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (54.90.289)
Medium Oil on canvas
Thompson sets the ship of the line Franklin at the heart of New York Bay, the Stars and Stripes at her stern and a blue flag with stars at the main, surrounded by merchant ships, sloops and small boats, with a round fort on the shore at left. Built at Philadelphia in 1815 and named for Benjamin Franklin, she served as flagship of the Mediterranean Squadron and returned to New York in April 1820, later leading the Pacific Squadron. The painting is a portrait of a young navy's pride: the great two-decker riding among the commerce she was built to protect.
The real ship USS Franklin, a 74-gun ship of the line, was the first vessel laid down at the Philadelphia Navy Yard and was launched in August 1815; flagship in the Mediterranean (1817 to 1820) and the Pacific (1821 to 1824), she became a receiving ship at Boston and was broken up at Portsmouth, New Hampshire in 1852.
Sources The Met · Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Drawing
HMY Royal George Named ship
The Embarkation of His Majesty George the Fourth on Board the 'Royal George' Yacht off Greenwich, 10 August 1822
Artist John Thomas Serres (1759 to 1825)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAI7705)
Medium Watercolour
Signed and dated, Serres's wide watercolour shows George IV embarking from a royal barge at Greenwich Hospital onto the yacht Royal George, bound for Edinburgh on 10 August 1822. It was the first visit to Scotland by a reigning monarch since 1651, and its success, orchestrated largely by Sir Walter Scott, began a lasting royal love affair with Scottish history and scenery. Steam vessels attended the squadron, so the old sailing yacht leads a procession that already hints at the coming age.
The real ship The Royal George was the royal yacht that carried George IV to Scotland in 1822; twenty years later she carried Queen Victoria and Prince Albert to Edinburgh.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: John Thomas Serres, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Painting
A Russian squadron at anchor in the Elsinore roads Unnamed
A Russian Fleet at Anchor off Elsinore (En russisk flåde til ankers på Helsingørs red), 1826
Artist C. W. Eckersberg (1783 to 1853)
Where to see it Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen (KMS1671)
Medium Oil on canvas
A whole foreign fleet lies at anchor in the roads of Elsinore: a line of Russian ships of the line and frigates, some with sails loosened, while a small open sailing boat runs past in the foreground and a ship under Danish colours gets under way to the right. Eckersberg studied such ships closely in these years, borrowing technical drawings from the naval dockyard for his portrait of the Asow. Here the interest is the fleet as a whole, a floating city of masts beneath a high, bright summer sky, the Sound choppy and alive.
The vessels The ships are warships of the Imperial Russian Navy at anchor in the roads of Elsinore in 1826; they are not individually identified.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: C. W. Eckersberg, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Painting
Two Russian ships of the line Unnamed
Two Russian Ships of the Line Saluting (To russiske linjeskibe som saluterer), 1827
Artist C. W. Eckersberg (1783 to 1853)
Where to see it Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen (KMS1663)
Medium Oil on canvas
Eckersberg studied Russian warships closely in these years, borrowing technical drawings from the naval dockyard for his pictures of them. Here two Russian ships of the line fire a salute, white smoke bursting from their sides beneath a towering summer cloud, the St Andrew's ensign flying; the nearer ship, under topsails, shows her ornate stern lettered CONSTANTIN, and more ships lie on the horizon. A salute is a courtesy between ships and nations, and the painting shares that courtesy: exact, luminous and calm. It was bought from the artist by the Danish naval officer Levin Jørgen Rohde.
The vessels The two warships are sailing ships of the line of the Imperial Russian Navy flying the St Andrew's ensign; the stern of the nearer is lettered CONSTANTIN.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: C. W. Eckersberg, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Painting
Azov (Asow) Named ship
The Russian Ship of the Line 'Asow' and a Frigate at Anchor in the Roads of Elsinore, 1828
Artist C. W. Eckersberg (1783 to 1853)
Where to see it Statens Museum for Kunst (National Gallery of Denmark), Copenhagen
Medium Oil on canvas
Eckersberg prepared this picture meticulously, studying the ship types beforehand, borrowing technical drawings from the naval dockyard and recording the work in his diary. Yet the scene is a construction built from more than one event: he had inspected such ships at Copenhagen and moved them to Elsinore, with Kronborg behind. His subject was Azov, hailed as the best ship in the Russian navy, which had spearheaded the Russian squadron at Navarino the year before; five of her officers, among them Nakhimov and Kornilov, became admirals. Eckersberg gives her a calm, exact dignity at anchor.
The real ship Built at Arkhangelsk and launched in June 1826 under Mikhail Lazarev, Azov led the Russian squadron at Navarino on 20 October 1827 and was heavily damaged; she returned to Kronstadt in 1830 badly decayed and was broken up in 1831.
Sources Wikipedia
Image: C. W. Eckersberg, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Painting
HMS Queen Charlotte Named ship
Visit of George III to Howe's Flagship, the 'Queen Charlotte', 26 June 1794, 1828
Artist Henry Perronet Briggs (1793 to 1844)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, Greenwich Hospital Collection (BHC0476)
Medium Oil on canvas
After the Glorious First of June, the first great naval battle of the French Revolutionary War, the king came aboard the victorious flagship. On the quarterdeck of the Queen Charlotte, George III presents Lord Howe with a diamond sword, while Queen Charlotte stands to the left in yellow silk with a red petticoat among the royal family. Briggs painted the scene in 1828, a generation later, and the ship becomes a stage: her deck the setting for the moment a nation thanked its admiral.
The real ship HMS Queen Charlotte, a first-rate launched at Chatham on 15 April 1790, was Howe's flagship at the Glorious First of June in 1794. She caught fire and was lost off Capraia on 17 March 1800.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Henry Perronet Briggs, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Painting
Danish frigates and a paddle steamer Named ship
The Roads of Copenhagen on 1 May 1832 (Københavns red 1. mai 1832)
Artist C. W. Eckersberg (1783 to 1853)
Where to see it Nasjonalmuseet for kunst, arkitektur og design, Oslo (NG.M.04265)
Medium Oil on canvas
Eckersberg was a passenger on the paddle steamer on 1 May 1832, and his diary records the frigates held at anchor by bad weather until the wind eased in the afternoon and they could begin their voyage north. From his notes and sketches he made several paintings of the episode. Here a frigate with her crew manning the yards fires a salute, smoke rolling across the water, while the red and white steamer, dressed in Danish flags, comes up in the foreground. The museum sees the steamer as a new era for Denmark as a seafaring nation, set against the old navy of sail.
“the frigates were supposed to have set sail early in the morning, but bad weather hindered them from leaving the safety of their anchorage”
The real ship The sailing warships are Danish naval frigates of the early nineteenth century at anchor in the roads of Copenhagen; the paddle steamer in the foreground, on which Eckersberg was a passenger, stands for the coming of steam to the Danish seas.
Sources Nasjonalmuseet · Wikimedia Commons
Image: C. W. Eckersberg, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Painting
Bucintoro Named ship
The Arrival of the Bucintoro at San Nicolò al Lido, c. 1840
Artist Giuseppe Bernardino Bison (1762 to 1844)
Where to see it Private collection (sold at Sotheby's, 2026)
Medium Oil on canvas
Bison painted the Bucintoro around 1840, some four decades after the French had destroyed her, working from Brustolon's engraving after a drawing by Canaletto, published between 1766 and 1774. The small canvas shows the barge arriving at San Nicolò al Lido for the ceremony in which the Doge cast a golden ring into the sea. Painted late in the life of a painter born in 1762, it is a picture of memory: the ship and the Republic were both gone, and only art kept the ceremony alive.
The real ship The last Bucintoro was built at the Venetian Arsenale under the naval architect Stefano Conti, with carving by Antonio Corradini; launched on 12 January 1728, she first served at the Marriage of the Sea in May 1729. About 35 metres long, with 42 oars pulled by 168 rowers chosen from the Arsenale workers, she was destroyed by the French in 1798, her carvings burnt on San Giorgio Maggiore and her hull finally broken up in 1824.
Sources sothebys.com · treccani.it
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows San Nicolò al Lido, Venice. Photo: Didier Descouens, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the sale record
Royal and state ships · Print
Belle Poule and Favorite Named ship
La Belle Poule: the Division Becalmed below the Line (La Belle Poule, division encalminée sous la ligne), after November 1840
Artist Jean-Baptiste Henri Durand-Brager (1814 to 1879)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAH0858)
Medium Lithograph
Durand-Brager sailed with the expedition that brought Napoleon's remains home from Saint Helena and made many images of the Retour des cendres. Here the frigate Belle Poule, painted black for the occasion, and her companion, the corvette Favorite, are shown in several positions, becalmed south of the equator. A white windsail rigged amidships ventilates the lower decks, which Greenwich finds apt given her cargo. Her guns are run out: on the passage north the Prince de Joinville, fearing war with Britain, readied his ship for action on or shortly after 31 October.
“perhaps particularly apposite in this case given the nature of the ship's cargo”
The real ship Belle Poule, a Surveillante-class 60-gun first-rank frigate begun in 1828 and launched in 1834, was one of the first ships built in a covered slip, to a design inspired by USS Constitution. Commanded by the Prince de Joinville and painted black, she sailed in July 1840 for Saint Helena and carried Napoleon's remains back to Cherbourg.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Jean-Baptiste Henri Durand-Brager, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Print
Belle Poule and her boats Named ship
Saint Helena: the Mole of Jamestown, seen from the Garden of the Governor's House at the Moment of the Ceremony (Ste Hélène. Môle de James Town, vue prise du jardin de l'Hôtel du Gouverneur et au moment de la cérémonie), 1840s
Artist Jean-Baptiste Henri Durand-Brager (1814 to 1879)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAH3034)
Medium Lithograph
On 15 October 1840, in pouring rain, Napoleon's coffin was brought down to Jamestown while the citadel and the Belle Poule fired guns in turn and the forts fired minute guns. The procession passed between two lines of garrison soldiers with arms reversed and halted at the head of the mole, where the aged and very sick Major General Middlemore met the Prince de Joinville; a brief exchange in halting French handed the body back to France. The coffin was lowered into the launch, and the French ships struck their signs of mourning and hoisted their colours. Durand-Brager, who sailed with the expedition, recorded the moment from the Governor's garden.
The real ship Belle Poule, a 60-gun frigate painted black for the voyage, carried Napoleon's remains from Saint Helena to Cherbourg, where on 8 December 1840 they were transferred to the steamer Normandie for the journey to Le Havre and up the Seine.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia (FR) · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Royal and state ships · Print
HMS Trafalgar (1841) Named ship
The Launch of the Trafalgar, in the Presence of Her Most Gracious Majesty Queen Victoria and His Royal Highness Prince Albert, at H.M. Dock Yard, Woolwich, 1842
Artist William Ranwell
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAI6689)
Medium Linen-backed lithograph
On 21 June 1841 the Trafalgar left the slip at Woolwich in the presence of the young Queen and Prince Albert. At the Queen's request she was launched by Charlotte, Lady Bridport, Nelson's niece, and her figurehead was a bust of the admiral himself. Ranwell's lithograph brought the day to those who missed it: a launch as national festival, the navy's newest three-decker taking to the Thames under the name of its most famous victory.
The real ship Laid down at Woolwich Dockyard in December 1829 and launched on 21 June 1841, the Trafalgar was a 120-gun, three-deck first-rate. She was sold for scrap in 1906, and her Nelson figurehead stands at the National Museum of the Royal Navy, Portsmouth.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Royal and state ships · Painting
HMS Queen Named ship
Queen Victoria's Visit to HMS 'Queen' at Portsmouth, 1 March 1842
Artist Robert Strickland Thomas
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, Nelson Ward Collection (BHC0629)
Medium Oil on canvas
Ordered as the Royal Frederick, the great three-decker was renamed on the stocks on 12 April 1839 in honour of the recently crowned queen. Three years later Victoria came to see her namesake at Portsmouth with Prince Albert, the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and his two sons, Prince Augustus and Prince Leo, and Lieutenant Thomas recorded the day. It is a picture of the navy honouring its sovereign, a first-rate bearing her title, visited by the woman in whose reign sail would give way to steam.
The real ship HMS Queen, a 110-gun first-rate launched at Portsmouth on 15 May 1839, was renamed in honour of Queen Victoria while still on the stocks. She took part in the bombardment of Sevastopol on 17 October 1854, was fitted with an auxiliary steam engine in 1858 to 1859 and was broken up in 1871.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Robert Strickland Thomas, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Drawing
HMY Royal George Named ship
Visit of Queen Victoria to Edinburgh, 1842: Arrival of the Royal Yacht Royal George at her Anchorage off Inchkeith at Midnight, 31 August 1842
Artist John Wilson Carmichael (1799 to 1868)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAF6096)
Medium Graphite, pen and brown wash
Carmichael signed and dated this drawing of the royal yacht Royal George arriving at her anchorage off Inchkeith at midnight on 31 August 1842, bringing Queen Victoria and Prince Albert to Edinburgh. A royal arrival usually meant bunting and salutes; here it is a ship coming to anchor in the night, a private moment in a public journey, recorded to the very hour. Twenty years before, the same yacht had brought George IV to Scotland.
The real ship The Royal George was the royal yacht that carried George IV to Scotland in 1822 and Queen Victoria and Prince Albert to Edinburgh in 1842.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Royal and state ships · Painting
Muiron Named ship
Bonaparte Arriving in France on his Return from Egypt, 9 October 1799 (Arrivée en France de Bonaparte au retour d'Égypte le 9 octobre 1799), 1843
Artist Louis Meijer (1809 to 1866)
Where to see it Château de Versailles (MV 1438)
Medium Oil on canvas
The frigate in this picture carried a future emperor. After the Battle of the Nile, Bonaparte left Egypt aboard the Muiron, under Admiral Ganteaume's flag, and landed in France on 9 October 1799. Napoleon never forgot the ship: in 1807 he ordered her preserved as a monument for several hundred years, with a gilded inscription on her hull, and a finely made model of her stood in his study at Malmaison. The Dutch marine painter Louis Meijer, settled in Paris from 1841, showed this large canvas at the Salon of 1843; it now hangs at Versailles.
“I wish that the Muiron on which I came back from Egypt be kept as a monument”
The real ship Muiron was one of two 18-pounder frigates found on the stocks at the Venice Arsenal in 1796, launched in August 1797 and named after Bonaparte's aide Colonel Muiron. After carrying Bonaparte home she fought at Algeciras, was preserved at Toulon, decommissioned at the Restoration and destroyed in 1850; Napoleon's model of her is in the Musée national de la Marine.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Royal and state ships · Drawing
HMY Victoria and Albert (1843) Named ship
Louis Philippe Taking Leave of Queen Victoria on Board the Royal Yacht, 1843
Artist Franz Xaver Winterhalter (1805 to 1873)
Where to see it Royal Collection, London (RCIN 920029)
Medium Watercolour
This is the royal yacht from the inside: Queen Victoria's cabin aboard the Victoria and Albert, where King Louis-Philippe and the French royal family took their leave after the Queen and Prince Albert had been their guests at the Château d'Eu from 2 to 7 September 1843. It was the first time Queen Victoria had travelled abroad. Winterhalter catches the warmth of a royal friendship made on land and closed at sea, in the private rooms of the ship that carried her.
The real ship The first royal yacht named Victoria and Albert carried the Queen and Prince Albert to Normandy for her first journey abroad, the visit to Louis-Philippe at the Château d'Eu in September 1843.
Sources Royal Collection · Wikidata
Image: Franz Xaver Winterhalter, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Print
HMY Royal George Named ship
The Royal George Yacht Conveying Her Majesty and Royal Consort to Edinburgh, August 1842, off the Bass Rock, 1843
Artist William John Huggins (1781 to 1845)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAH8903)
Medium Hand-coloured aquatint
Dedicated to Prince Albert, Huggins's print shows the sailing yacht Royal George carrying the Queen and her consort to Edinburgh in August 1842, off the Bass Rock, joined by the General Steam Navigation Company's ships Trident and Monarch. Twenty years earlier the same yacht had carried George IV to Scotland. Here the royal sail keeps company with steamers, and the new royal steam yacht Victoria and Albert would be launched the following April: the print records a sailing royal yacht on the threshold of the steam age.
The real ship The Royal George was the royal yacht that carried George IV to Scotland in 1822 and Queen Victoria and Prince Albert to Edinburgh in 1842.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: William John Huggins, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Painting
HMY Victoria and Albert (1843) Named ship
Visit of Queen Victoria to Le Tréport (Visite de la reine Victoria au Tréport), 1844
Artist Eugène Isabey (1803 to 1886)
Where to see it Musée national de la Marine, Paris (9 OA 57)
Medium Oil on canvas
On 2 September 1843 Queen Victoria arrived at Le Tréport for her first journey abroad, a week as guest of King Louis-Philippe at the Château d'Eu, and she came in the new royal steam yacht Victoria and Albert, launched only that April. Isabey makes the arrival a spectacle: the black paddle steamer under a great red ensign, a canopied barge alongside, rowing boats crowding in and guns firing salutes in clouds of smoke. The yacht, the first royal yacht to be steam-powered, is the herald of a new age of diplomacy by steam.
The real ship HMY Victoria and Albert, a twin-paddle steamer designed by William Symonds and laid down at Pembroke Dock, was launched on 25 April 1843 as the first royal yacht to be steam-powered. Renamed Osborne in 1855, when a new Victoria and Albert entered service, she was scrapped in 1868.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikidata · Royal Collection · Wikipedia
Royal and state ships · Print
America (schooner yacht, 1851) Named ship
The Clipper Yacht "America": Built by Mr. George Steers of New York for John C. Stevens, Esq. and Associates of the New York Yacht Club, c. 1851 to 1852
Artist Frances Flora Bond Palmer (1812 to 1876), for Nathaniel Currier
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (51.567.95)
Medium Hand-coloured lithograph
A syndicate of New York Yacht Club members led by Commodore John Cox Stevens built America to show off American shipbuilding and to win money racing abroad. On 22 August 1851 she beat the Royal Yacht Squadron's fleet round the Isle of Wight, and the prize was later renamed the America's Cup in her honour. Nathaniel Currier, seeing the commercial appeal, issued several lithographs of the victory; in this one Fanny Palmer presents the suddenly famous schooner as a national heroine. She was sold ten days after the race.
The real ship Designed by George Steers and launched at William H. Brown's yard in New York on 3 May 1851, America won the Royal Yacht Squadron's race round the Isle of Wight on 22 August 1851 and was sold ten days later. After service as a Confederate blockade runner, a Union blockader and a Naval Academy training ship, her decayed remains were scrapped in 1945.
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where the original is kept. Photo: Arad, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Royal and state ships · Painting
America (schooner yacht, 1851) Named ship
The Yacht "America" Winning the International Race, 1851
Artist Fitz Henry Lane (1804 to 1865)
Where to see it Peabody Essex Museum, Salem (M4696)
Medium Oil on canvas
On 22 August 1851 the New York schooner America sailed round the Isle of Wight and beat the Royal Yacht Squadron's fleet, winning the cup later renamed in her honour. Lane based his picture closely on Thomas Dutton's lithograph after an on-the-spot drawing by Oswald Brierly, darkening the foreground water and giving the sky a more dramatic bank of cloud. The Needles stand on the horizon; only one cutter is anywhere near America as she runs wing and wing for the finish, while the passengers of a small pleasure boat raise their hats and cheer.
“Only one cutter (left) is anywhere near ‘America’ as she romps, with her sails wing and wing, to the finish line.”
The real ship America was designed by George Steers and launched at William H. Brown's yard in New York on 3 May 1851 for a New York Yacht Club syndicate led by Commodore John Cox Stevens. Her victory in the Royal Yacht Squadron's race round the Isle of Wight gave its name to the America's Cup; she was sold ten days later, and after a long career on both sides of the Atlantic her remains were scrapped in 1945.
Sources fitzhenrylaneonline.org · Wikipedia · The Met
Image: Fitz Henry Lane, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Painting
Napoléon Named ship
Arrival of the Prince President in the Roadstead of Toulon, 1852 (Arrivée du Prince Président en rade de Toulon), c. 1852 to 1860
Artist Barthélemy Lauvergne (1805 to 1871)
Where to see it Musée national de la Marine, Paris (9 OA 23)
Medium Oil on canvas
In 1852 Louis Napoléon, then Prince-President, came to Toulon, and the navy showed him the ship that now bore his family's name. The Napoléon, designed by Dupuy de Lôme and launched in 1850, was the first purpose-built steam battleship in the world and the first screw ship of the line; on trials in 1852 she made nearly 14 knots. Lauvergne, a Toulon painter who had sailed round the world three times, first as Dumont d'Urville's secretary on the Astrolabe, was sent to Toulon to paint the Prince-President's visit aboard her.
“I still laugh about it”
The real ship Ordered in 1847 as the Prince de Joinville, renamed 24 Février under the Second Republic and Napoléon in May 1850, a few days after her launch, she was the lead ship of a class of nine 90-gun screw battleships. Her performance in the Crimean War attracted great attention; she was broken up in 1886.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia · Wikipedia (FR)
Image: Barthélemy Lauvergne, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Drawing
HMS Duke of Wellington and HMY Victoria and Albert Named ship
Her Majesty's Visit to the Flagship, 11 August 1853, Showing 'Duke of Wellington' and 'Victoria & Albert', c. 1853
Artist William Adolphus Knell (1801 to 1875)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAF6120)
Medium Watercolour
The grand review at Spithead on 11 August 1853 was intended to show the application of steam to naval warfare, and the Illustrated London News called it a national show. The Queen, Prince Albert and two of their sons came down the Solent in the royal yacht Victoria and Albert and went aboard the Duke of Wellington, the Channel Fleet's flagship of 131 guns, before a mock engagement and chase were staged. Knell sets the paddle yacht beside the great screw three-decker: the Crown and the navy, both under steam.
“intended to demonstrate the application of steam to naval warfare”
The real ship The Duke of Wellington, laid down as the Windsor Castle and launched on 14 September 1852, was converted to screw propulsion while still building; a 131-gun first-rate, she led the Baltic Fleet in the Crimean War and was sold to be broken up in 1904. The Victoria and Albert of 1843 was the first steam-powered royal yacht.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Royal and state ships · Print
Una, Ray and L'Esperance (racing yachts) Named ship
Regatta of the New York Yacht Club, June 1st, 1854: Rounding the S.W. Spit
Artist After James E. Buttersworth (1817 to 1894); drawn on stone by Charles Parsons; published by Nathaniel Currier
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (63.550.76)
Medium Hand-coloured lithograph printed in two colours, with gum arabic
Made in the year of the race, this print records the New York Yacht Club regatta of 1 June 1854 at the moment the fleet rounds the South West Spit. A key of names beneath the image lets the viewer pick out Una, shown broadside at the centre with her whole crew scrambling at the sails to stay ahead of a long line of yachts receding into the distance. The club's records name Una the winner, followed by Ray and L'Esperance. Buttersworth's composition, drawn on stone by Charles Parsons, catches the urgency of a crew working a yacht round the mark.
The real ship Una, Ray and L'Esperance were yachts racing in the New York Yacht Club regatta of 1 June 1854; the club's records give Una as the winner, with Ray second and L'Esperance third.
Image: After James E. Buttersworth, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Print
Henrietta, Fleetwing and Vesta (schooner yachts) Named ship
The Great Ocean Yacht Race between the Henrietta, Fleetwing and Vesta: The "Good Bye" to the Yacht Club Steamer "River Queen", 4 Miles East of Sandy Hook Light Ship, Dec. 11th, 1866, 1867
Artist After Charles Parsons (1821 to 1910); Currier and Ives
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (51.567.94)
Medium Lithograph, printed in colour
Ocean yacht racing began with a wager made one October evening in 1866, when three wealthy New York owners bet 30,000 dollars each on a race across the winter Atlantic, from Sandy Hook to the Isle of Wight. The print shows the three schooners taking leave of the club steamer River Queen four miles east of the Sandy Hook lightship on 11 December. The crossing cost lives aboard Fleetwing. James Gordon Bennett Jr.'s Henrietta won, arriving on Christmas Day after thirteen days and twenty-two hours.
The real ship Henrietta was a 205-ton keel schooner modelled by William Tooker and launched by Henry Steers at Greenpoint in May 1861 for James Gordon Bennett Jr.; she served in the Revenue Marine during the Civil War and was lost off Roatán, Honduras, in 1872, her crew saved. Fleetwing and Vesta, owned by the Osgoods and Pierre Lorillard IV, were her New York Yacht Club rivals.
Image: After Charles Parsons, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Painting
River Queen Named ship
The Peacemakers, 1868
Artist George P. A. Healy (1813 to 1894)
Where to see it The White House, Washington, D.C.
Medium Oil on canvas
On 27 March 1865, aboard the steamer River Queen at City Point, Virginia, Lincoln met Grant, Sherman and Admiral Porter in the war's only three-way meeting of the president and his two great generals. Healy was not there; he worked from his own earlier portraits, photographs, sittings and Sherman's account of the meeting. The humble river steamer becomes a council chamber for the last days of the Civil War. The largest version burnt in 1893; this one has been in the White House collection since 1947.
“I shall never forget that council which met on board the River Queen.”
The real ship The River Queen was a side-wheel steamer built at Keyport, New Jersey, in 1864. She hosted the unsuccessful Hampton Roads peace conference on 3 February 1865 and the council of March 1865, later ran as a ferry to Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket and as a Potomac excursion boat, and was destroyed by fire in 1911.
Sources Wikipedia
Image: George P. A. Healy, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Print
Magic (schooner yacht) and the fleet racing Cambria, 1870 Named ship
The Great International Yacht Race, August 8, 1870
Artist Currier and Ives, lithographers and publishers (active 1857 to 1907)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (63.550.73)
Medium Hand-coloured lithograph
This print records the first challenge for the America's Cup, sailed in New York harbour. On 8 August 1870 the English yacht Cambria met seventeen American yachts on a forty-mile course from the Staten Island clubhouse round the South West Spit to the Sandy Hook lightship and back. The Met notes that the print was aimed at the well-to-do members of the New York Yacht Club. A two-masted schooner leads the fleet while the lightship flies twenty flags and pennants, and the margin names the winner: Magic, in 3 hours, 33 minutes and 54 seconds.
The real ship Magic, a racing schooner of the New York Yacht Club, was built as the sloop Madgie at Philadelphia in 1857 and later rerigged and rebuilt; she was the smallest yacht in the 1870 race and its winner. She passed through many owners, ended as a pilot boat at Key West and was wrecked there in a hurricane in 1922. Cambria represented the Royal Thames Yacht Club of London.
Image: Currier and Ives, lithographers and publishers, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Print
Cambria (schooner yacht, 1868) Named ship
Royal Thames Yacht Club Schooner "Cambria", 199 Tons: James Ashbury, Esq., London and Brighton, Owner, 1870
Artist Charles Richard Parsons (1844 to 1918) and Lyman W. Atwater (1835 to 1891), for Currier and Ives
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (51.567.5)
Medium Hand-coloured lithograph
Currier and Ives here honour a British rival. In July 1870 James Ashbury's schooner Cambria raced James Gordon Bennett Jr.'s Dauntless across the Atlantic from Ireland to New York and, as the Met records, won by reaching the Sandy Hook lightship first, after 23 days, 5 hours and 17 minutes, one hour and 43 minutes ahead. On 8 August she became the first challenger for the America's Cup, finishing eighth as Magic won. The print shows her under full sail, a portrait of the yacht that opened the long line of British challenges.
The real ship Cambria was a 188-ton schooner built at Cowes by Michael Ratsey in 1868 for James Lloyd Ashbury. She won the Round the Isle of Wight race in 1869 and in 1870 became the first, unsuccessful, challenger for the America's Cup on behalf of the Royal Thames Yacht Club.
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where the original is kept. Photo: Arad, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Royal and state ships · Painting
HMS Devastation Named ship
HM Turret Ship 'Devastation' at Spithead on the Occasion of the Naval Review in Honour of the Shah of Persia, 23 June 1873, 1875
Artist Edward William Cooke (1811 to 1880)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, Greenwich Hospital Collection (BHC3287)
Medium Oil on canvas
When the Shah of Persia made his state visit in 1873 he was entertained in a style without precedent, and the navy staged a review at Spithead in his honour, the Shah watching from the royal yacht Victoria and Albert at the far left. Cooke gives the foreground to the Devastation, the first battleship built for the Royal Navy without sails. A review meant to impress a foreign monarch thus becomes a portrait of a revolution: the age of masts giving way to the turret and the funnel.
“the first battleship without sails to be built for the Royal Navy”
The real ship HMS Devastation led the first class of ocean-going capital ships built without sails, with her main armament carried in turrets on top of the hull rather than inside it. She was sold for breaking up in 1908.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Edward William Cooke, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Print
Puritan (sloop, 1885) and Genesta (cutter, 1884) Named ship
The Puritan and Genesta on the Homestretch: In Their Second and Final International Race for "The America's Cup", Sept. 16th, 1885, Won by the Puritan
Artist After Franklyn Bassford (1857 to 1897); Currier and Ives
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (51.567.16)
Medium Lithograph, printed in colour
The last leg of the deciding race of the 1885 America's Cup, sailed on 16 September. The Boston-built defender Puritan races home against Sir Richard Sutton's English cutter Genesta of the Royal Yacht Squadron. Genesta's designer, John Beavor Webb, had refused to let anyone see his yacht before the races, the start of a long tradition of secrecy. Prints such as this were drawn on stone, printed in monochrome and usually coloured by hand by women working for Currier and Ives at home, carrying the drama of the Cup into American parlours.
The real ship Puritan was designed by Edward Burgess and built by George Lawley and Son at South Boston, launched on 26 May 1885; she combined the depth of a cutter with the beam and power of a sloop. Genesta, oak planked on a steel frame, was designed by John Beavor Webb and built by D. and W. Henderson on the Clyde in 1884 for Sir Richard Sutton; she was broken up in 1900.
Image: After Franklyn Bassford, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Painting
Bayard Named ship
The Return of Admiral Courbet's Remains to the Salins d'Hyères on the Bayard, 1885 (Retour des cendres de l'amiral Courbet aux Salins d'Hyères en 1885 sur le Bayard)
Artist Émile Mathon (1842 to 1899)
Where to see it Musée national de la Marine, Paris (9 OA 216)
Medium Oil on canvas
Admiral Courbet, commander of the French squadron in the war with China, died of cholera aboard his flagship Bayard in the harbour of Makung in the Pescadores on 11 June 1885. The Bayard herself brought his body home, by Aden, Suez and Bône, reaching Toulon on 26 August, where a state funeral was held. Mathon, a pupil of Daubigny who painted warships and harbours among many subjects, shows the ironclad at the Salins d'Hyères at the end of her mournful voyage, a warship turned into a hearse carrying a nation's grief home across the sea.
The real ship Bayard, laid down in 1876 and launched on 27 March 1880, became Admiral Courbet's flagship in 1883 and served through the war with China, including the Pescadores campaign. She left the Pescadores on 23 June 1885 carrying Courbet's body, reached Toulon on 26 August, and later served with the reserve of the Mediterranean Squadron.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikipedia (FR) · Wikidata
Royal and state ships · Print
Mayflower (sloop, 1886) and Galatea (cutter, 1885) Named ship
Mayflower Saluted by the Fleet: Crossing the Bow of "Galatea" in Their First Race for the "America's Cup" over the Inside Course, New York Bay, September 7th, 1886
Artist After Franklyn Bassford (1857 to 1897); Currier and Ives
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (51.567.9)
Medium Lithograph, printed in colour
On 7 September 1886, in the first race of that year's America's Cup, the Boston sloop Mayflower crossed the bow of the British cutter Galatea and was saluted by the fleet. The print shows Mayflower at the head of a long line of yachts receding into the distance, with a steamship far off to the right. Galatea's owner, Lieutenant William Henn, had sailed her to New York with his wife, and a monkey called Peggy travelled on board as a mascot. Mayflower won both races.
The real ship Mayflower was designed by Edward Burgess, built of oak and hard pine by George Lawley and Son and launched in 1886 for General Charles J. Paine of Boston. Galatea was an all-metal gaff cutter designed by John Beavor Webb and launched in 1885 for Lieutenant William Henn of the Royal Northern Yacht Club.
Image: After Franklyn Bassford, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Painting
Dvenadtsat Apostolov leading the Black Sea Fleet; the steam frigate Vladimir Named ship
Review of the Black Sea Fleet in 1849 (Smotr Chernomorskogo flota v 1849 godu), 1886
Artist Ivan Aivazovsky (1817 to 1900)
Where to see it Central Naval Museum, St Petersburg (Zh 41)
Medium Oil on canvas
Aivazovsky watched the review of 1849 on the Sevastopol roads as a companion of Nicholas I aboard the steam frigate Vladimir, and recreated it from memory in 1886. The line is led by the 120-gun Dvenadtsat Apostolov, followed by the 84-gun Rostislav, Sviatoslav and Yagudiil. In the lower right corner the Tsar takes the salute aboard the Vladimir, and at a respectful distance stand Admiral Lazarev with Kornilov, Nakhimov and Istomin. The painting is a memorial as much as a parade: four years later many of these ships fought at Sinop, and all were scuttled by their own crews in the defence of Sevastopol.
The real ship Dvenadtsat Apostolov, lead ship of a class of three first-rates, was completed in 1842 and served her whole career in the Black Sea; in the Crimean War her guns were landed, she served as a hospital ship and was sunk as a blockship at Sevastopol. Vladimir, built in London in 1848, won the first action between steamships in 1853 and was scuttled at Sevastopol in 1855.
Sources Wikipedia (RU) · Wikipedia
Image: Ivan Aivazovsky, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Painting
Hoche Named ship
The Launch of the Battleship Hoche at Lorient in 1886 (Lancement du cuirassé Hoche à Lorient en 1886), 1887
Artist Alexandre Jean-Baptiste Brun (1853 to 1941)
Where to see it Musée national de la Marine, Paris (9 OA 911)
Medium Oil on canvas
On 29 September 1886 the battleship Hoche took the water at Lorient, where her keel had been laid five years before, and Brun, a Marseille painter trained under Cabanel and Carolus Duran, recorded the event the following year. She was a ship of transition: first designed as an answer to the very large Italian ironclads, then radically redesigned with her heavy guns in the lozenge arrangement that shaped a generation of French capital ships. Her large superstructure and low freeboard later caused serious stability problems that took extensive work to correct.
The real ship Hoche was ordered on 3 August 1880, laid down at Lorient in August 1881 and launched on 29 September 1886. She served in the Northern and Mediterranean Squadrons from 1890, visited Germany for the opening of the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal in 1895, and was reconstructed from 1898 to 1901 to cure her stability problems.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia · Wikipedia (FR)
Image: Alexandre Jean-Baptiste Brun, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Print
Vigilant (1893) and Valkyrie II (1893) Named ship
Vigilant and Valkyrie in a "Thrash to Windward": In Their International Race for "The America's Cup", October 7th, 9th and 13th, 1893
Artist Currier and Ives, lithographers and publishers (active 1857 to 1907)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (51.567.7)
Medium Lithograph, printed in colour
The eighth America's Cup of 1893, sailed off Sandy Hook in October. Nathanael Herreshoff's Vigilant, the first of his Cup winners, beats to windward ahead of Lord Dunraven's black-hulled Valkyrie II, her crew lined along the weather rail to keep her upright under full sail. A tugboat flying the American flag steams between them and a steamboat watches in the distance. The inscription records Vigilant's victory. By the 1890s, the Met notes, Currier and Ives printed such subjects in colour rather than colouring them by hand.
The real ship Vigilant was a steel and bronze centreboard sloop designed by Nathanael Greene Herreshoff and built in 1893 by the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company at Bristol, Rhode Island. Valkyrie II was a gaff cutter designed by George Lennox Watson and built alongside the royal yacht Britannia by D. and W. Henderson on the Clyde for Lord Dunraven.
Image: Currier and Ives, lithographers and publishers, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Painting
HMY Victoria and Albert II Named ship
Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee Review at Spithead, 26 June 1897, 1898
Artist Charles Dixon (1872 to 1934)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0645)
Medium Oil on canvas
At the Diamond Jubilee review the Prince of Wales stood in for his mother, reviewing a fleet that included 21 battleships and 56 cruisers from the royal yacht Victoria and Albert, seen on the right flying the Royal Standard. The review was an opportunity, in the museum's words, to show the importance of the nation's sea power, and the sheer number of battleships was taken as confirmation of supremacy. Dixon's painting shows the Victorian navy at its height, with the old royal yacht carrying the Crown among the warships.
“demonstrate the importance of the nation's sea power and to underscore the significance and responsibilities of Empire”
The real ship HMY Victoria and Albert, the second royal yacht of the name, was a paddle steamer launched at Pembroke Dock on 16 January 1855; Queen Victoria first cruised in her on 12 July 1855. She served as the sovereign's yacht until 1900 and was scrapped around 1904.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Royal and state ships · Drawing
Warship launched at Portsmouth Dockyard, with HMS Victory beyond Unnamed
A Launch at Portsmouth, c. 1900 to 1910
Artist William Lionel Wyllie (1851 to 1931)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (PW2115)
Medium Graphite and watercolour
A rapid sketch made during a launch at Portsmouth Dockyard, probably in the first decade of the twentieth century. Wyllie looks south towards the entrance to the harbour, straight into the light, and in the right distance, small and still, lies HMS Victory. The new hull and the old flagship share one sheet of paper. The museum singles out his ability to capture the moment with considerable economy, and the drawing shows it: a crowded, fleeting event set down in a few strokes of graphite and wash.
“A rapid sketch made during a launch at Portsmouth Dockyard”
The vessels Portsmouth Dockyard launched many of the battleships and cruisers of the Edwardian navy; the ship sketched here is not identified. HMS Victory, Nelson's flagship, lay in Portsmouth harbour.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikimedia Commons
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Royal and state ships · Drawing
HMY Alberta Named ship
HMY 'Alberta' Carrying the Remains of Queen Victoria, 1901
Artist William Lionel Wyllie (1851 to 1931)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAH4066)
Medium Watercolour
Queen Victoria died at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight on 22 January 1901, and her body was brought across the Solent to Portsmouth in the royal yacht Alberta, on its way to her funeral at Windsor. Wyllie watched the crossing from the flagship HMS Majestic. The drawing relates to his Royal Academy painting of that year, The Passing of a Great Queen, now in the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, and may be a study for it. It is the navy's farewell to its queen, set down by a man who was there.
The real ship HMY Alberta was the royal yacht that carried Queen Victoria's body from the Isle of Wight across the Solent to Portsmouth in 1901.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: William Lionel Wyllie, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Painting
HMY Alberta Named ship
The Passing of a Great Queen, 1901
Artist William Lionel Wyllie (1851 to 1931)
Where to see it Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (WAG 128)
Medium Oil on canvas
Shown at the Royal Academy in 1901, the year of the Queen's death, this large canvas records the last crossing of Queen Victoria. In the late afternoon of 1 February the small royal yacht Alberta, carrying her body, comes into Gosport with the setting sun behind her, the royal standard at half-mast and destroyers escorting her. Anchored battleships fire their salutes, and behind follows the larger Victoria and Albert with King Edward VII aboard. Wyllie gives a modest paddle yacht the whole weight of a nation's farewell.
The real ship HMY Alberta was a wooden paddle steamer of 370 tons, launched at Pembroke Dock on 3 October 1863 as tender to the royal yacht Victoria and Albert and much used across the Solent to Osborne. On 1 February 1901 she carried Queen Victoria's coffin across the Solent into Gosport; she was sold for breaking up in 1913.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia · Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: William Lionel Wyllie, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Painting
SMY Hohenzollern (II) Named ship
The Kaiser's Yacht Hohenzollern under Escort on a Summer Cruise in Northern Waters, 1904
Artist Carl Saltzmann (1847 to 1923)
Where to see it Private collection
Medium Oil on canvas
Saltzmann was close to Wilhelm II's court at sea. He had given the young prince drawing lessons, was taken on the new Kaiser's first northern voyage in 1888, and sailed on at least 22 of the Kaiser's summer cruises to the north. Here the long white Hohenzollern, three-masted and twin-funnelled, steams past a towering dark headland while waves break over the rocks in the foreground and two escorts follow in her wake. It is a court picture made by a man who knew these waters from the Kaiser's own deck: the imperial summer ritual of northern coasts.
The real ship Hohenzollern II was launched at AG Vulcan, Stettin, on 27 June 1892, 120 m long, and served as imperial yacht and aviso from 1893 to July 1914, carrying the Kaiser on his annual Norway cruises every year but 1906 from 1894 to 1914. She was put out of service at Kiel in July 1914, struck in 1920 and scrapped at Wilhelmshaven in 1923.
Sources Wikipedia (DE) · Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Drawing
Royal Louise Named ship
The Miniature Frigate Royal Louise on the Havel (Royal Louise auf der Havel), 1904
Artist Willy Stöwer (1864 to 1931)
Where to see it Private collection
Medium Watercolour and gouache on paper
A full-rigged frigate on a Berlin lake: Stöwer paints the Royal Louise under a cloud of sail on the Havel, sailors in white on deck, the imperial ensign at her stern, while an excursion steamer, a tug, sailing boats and a barge share the water. She was a royal gift with a diplomatic history. After the victory over Napoleon, George III gave Frederick William III a small three-masted boat; when it decayed, William IV renewed the gift in 1832 with a one-third-scale copy of the frigate Thetis, named after Queen Louise. Carried up the Elbe and Havel on a barge with masts standing, she sailed there until 1914.
The real ship Laid down at a Royal Dockyard in 1831 as a 1:3 copy of the frigate Thetis and handed over on the Wannsee on 22 June 1832 by Lord Adolphus FitzClarence, she was based at Peacock Island and from 1841 at the sailors' station on the Jungfernsee near Potsdam, sailed until 1914 and was destroyed after 1945; a replica has sailed on the Havel since 1999.
Sources Wikipedia (DE) · Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Painting
Dannebrog Named ship
Prince Carl and Princess Maud Arriving in the Oslofjord as King Haakon VII and Queen Maud of Norway in 1905
Artist Vilhelm Arnesen (1865 to 1948)
Where to see it Private collection (sold at Bruun Rasmussen, Copenhagen, 2013)
Medium Oil on canvas
In November 1905 the Danish royal yacht Dannebrog left Denmark carrying Prince Carl and his family to Norway, where he would reign as King Haakon VII. Arnesen shows the paddle yacht steaming up the fjord in a blaze of sunset gold, a royal standard at her fore, escorted by the Danish warships Olfert Fischer and Geiser and joined by two Norwegian coastal defence ships, while flag-decked vessels crowd the water and men in a small boat in the foreground wave in welcome. The yacht carries more than a family: she carries a new nation's crown across the water.
The real ship Dannebrog was a Danish royal side-wheel paddle steam yacht launched on 6 October 1879 and commissioned in 1880; she took Prince Carl to Norway, leaving Denmark on 23 November 1905, was lengthened to 72 m in 1906 to 1907 and was decommissioned in 1931.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Vilhelm Arnesen, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Print
SMY Hohenzollern (II) Named ship
A Solemn Ceremony aboard the Hohenzollern: Lowering the Flag at Sunset (Eine feierliche Handlung an Bord der Hohenzollern: Das Niederholen der Flagge bei Sonnenuntergang), 1912
Artist Willy Stöwer (1864 to 1931)
Medium Watercolour (known from a halftone reproduction)
Stöwer sailed with Wilhelm II on several of his voyages between 1905 and 1912, and this scene comes from the Kaiser's northern cruise of July 1912; he signed it aboard the yacht. On the long deck of the Hohenzollern men stand at attention with their backs to us, one saluting, as the ensign is lowered at sunset, masts and rigging rising above them and a mountain beyond; a warship waits in the distance. It is an intimate ritual of the imperial yacht, reproduced in print for readers at home, two summers before the yacht was put out of service.
The real ship Hohenzollern II, launched at Stettin in 1892, carried Wilhelm II on his annual cruises to Norway every year but 1906 from 1894 to 1914; she was put out of service at Kiel at the end of July 1914 and scrapped in 1923.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia · Wikipedia (DE)
Royal and state ships · Painting
Prince Royal Named ship
Embarkation at Margate of the Elector Palatine and Princess Elizabeth, undated
Artist Adam Willaerts (1577 to 1664)
Where to see it Royal Collection, London (RCIN 404994)
Medium Oil painting
In April 1613 Princess Elizabeth, daughter of James I, left England with her new husband Frederick, Elector Palatine, sailing from Margate for Ostend in the Prince Royal, the great ship Phineas Pett had launched three years before. Willaerts, settled in Utrecht, painted ceremonial arrivals and departures in a bright, anecdotal style. Here the royal party gathers on the jetty among yeomen and courtiers while barges wait, and the great ship under the royal standard rides among the fleet: a princess's farewell to her country turned into a pageant of flags and ships.
“religious scenes involving ships as well as ceremonial arrivals and departures, all in a brightly coloured anecdotal style”
The real ship The Prince Royal was built by Phineas Pett at Woolwich and launched in 1610; Princess Elizabeth sailed in her from Margate to Ostend in April 1613. Rebuilt in 1639 to 1641 and renamed Resolution under the Commonwealth, she ran aground on the Galloper Sand in the Four Days' Battle of 1666 and was burnt on de Ruyter's orders to prevent her recapture.
Sources Royal Collection · Wikipedia
Royal and state ships · Painting
Royal yacht Anne and HMS Prince Named ship
Royal Visit to the Fleet in the Thames Estuary, 6 June 1672, undated
Artist Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633 to 1707)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0299)
Medium Oil on canvas
In the summer of 1672 Charles II visited ships of the fleet refitting in the Thames after the Battle of Solebay in May. Van de Velde, who had come to England with his father that year, shows the yacht Anne of the king's brother James, Duke of York, in the left foreground under a red ensign, with the yacht Cleveland beyond hauling down the royal standard, for the king has gone aboard the Prince, on the right, to hold a council of war. French boats lie among them, France being England's ally in the Third Dutch War. A royal outing becomes an image of a navy repairing its wounds.
The real ship The Anne was a royal yacht used by James, Duke of York; the Prince, the principal ship in the painting, is where the king held his council of war during this visit after the Battle of Solebay.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Willem van de Velde the Younger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
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