Joseph Mallord William Turner
The 98-gun ship HMS Temeraire played a distinguished role in the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. This was Admiral Lord Nelson's finest hour and conclusively ended any threat of invasion by Napoleon's combined French and Spanish forces. Unfortunately, Nelson was killed during the battle. The French Admiral Villenueve attended Nelson's funeral on parole from his captivity in England.
The painting depicts HMS Temeraire being towed by a paddle-wheel steam tug towards its final berth in Rotherhithe in south-east London in 1838 to be broken up for scrap. Turner was at the height of his career, having exhibited at the Royal Academy for 40 years. He almost certainly did not witness the actual towing, but imbued the painting with great symbolic meaning. The stately old warship is being towed by a dirty tugboat toward a grimy dock, as sailboats have become obsolete with the advent of steam power in the industrial age. The demise of heroic strength is the subject of the painting, and it has been suggested that the ship stands for the artist himself, with an accomplished and glorious past but now contemplating his mortality.
The painting hangs in the National Gallery, London, having been bequeathed to the nation by the artist in 1851. In 2005 it was voted the nation's favorite painting, and was used in the Bond film Skyfall to symbolize Bond's age and standing within MI6.
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Want to learn more about William Turner? Read our article "JMW Turner and Honore Daumier – Sign Of Their Times".