Fighting Téméraire
Engraver Thomas Abiel Prior British
After Joseph Mallord William Turner British
Publisher Henry Graves & Co. British
Not on view
Prior's engraving reproduces Turner's famous painting, now in the National Gallery in London, which the artist exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1839: "The fighting Temeraire, tugged to her last berth to be broken up, 1838 ('The flag which braved the battle and the breeze, no longer owns her')". The painting depicts HMS Temeraire being towed along the river Thames in London by a modern paddle steamer to be broken up for scrap. The warship was among the last to have been at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 and here Turner laments her inglorious final journey.
