Slaget ved Quiberon Bay
Slaget ved Quiberon Bay, på 20 november 1759 af den britiske maler Nicholas Pocock (1740 – 1821); is known for the numerous naval battle scenes he created during the age of the sailing ships
Slaget ved Quiberon Bay skildres kraftfuldt i dette maleri af den britiske maler Nicholas Pocock, have en flåde af krigsskibe under tage en krig til søs, engagerer hinanden på tæt hold, skyder der kanoner ind i tarmen på hinandens krigsskibe på det hårde hav, under stormskyer på en kraftigt overskyet dag.
The Battle of Quiberon Bay is a retouched digital art old masters reproduction of a public domain image that is available for purchase online in a variety of material formats including canvas prints, akryltryk, metaltryk, trætryk, indrammede tryk, plakater, og som rullede lærredstryk i forskellige størrelser fra 12 tommer til 72 tommer afhængigt af størrelsen på det faktiske kunstværk og den print-on-demand-butik, du vælger at købe kunsten fra.
Oplysninger nedenfor stammer fra Royal Museums Greenwich
The Battle of Quiberon Bay was a major naval engagement that took place on November 20, 1759, during the Seven Years War. The conflict involved the major European colonial powers and was fought around the globe. The French had been at war with Britain since 1756, and their position in Canada, Indien, and the West Indies was on the verge of collapse. I Europa, they faced stalemate against Prussia, which received British support.
The French planned to land an army of 20,000 men in Ireland, which was assembled in the gulf of Morbihan in southern Brittany under the Duc d’Aiguillon. The force was to be escorted by the Brest fleet under Admiral Hubert de Conflans. Admiral Sir Edward Hawke’s Channel Fleet blockaded Brest to prevent the French from leaving to collect the troop transports. Imidlertid, during a gale in the first week of November, Hawke’s ships were forced to run for shelter in Torbay, giving de Conflans the chance to escape.
On hearing that the French had escaped, Hawke pursued them and sighted them 20 miles out to sea on November 20. De Conflans, relying on local knowledge, ordered his fleet to take refuge in Quiberon Bay, south of Morbihan, assuming Hawke would not follow due to the ill-charted rocks, reefs, and wild seas. This was a miscalculation, and Hawke relentlessly pursued him into the bay, losing two of his own ships on the outer reefs but sinking the French ‘Thesee’ and ‘Superbe’ by a combination of gunfire and the weather, and otherwise decimating de Conflans’ force in what became an action practically in the dark.
The French flagship ‘Soleil Royal’ went aground in the bay, near Le Croisic, and was burned to prevent capture the following day. Others were captured, including the ‘Heros,’ which was burned. A few French ships escaped to Rochefort, and some others managed to find refuge in the mouth of the River Vilaine, where they were trapped for months, and one more lost by grounding.
The battle was a decisive victory for the British, and it stopped any French plans to invade Britain during the Seven Years War. The famous naval song ‘Hearts of Oak’ was composed to commemorate the battle. The battle was fought so close inshore that contemporary accounts reported that ten thousand persons watched it from the coast.
This rather later painting by Pocock is partly based on an earlier one by Dominic Serres and shows Hawke’s ‘Royal George’ in the left center, with his blue admiral’s color at the main, in action with de Conflans’ ‘Soleil Royal’ to the right, though the latter is wrongly shown as a three-decker. A French ship astern of the ‘Royal George’ is firing broadsides on both sides, her starboard battery probably directed at Augustus Keppel’s ‘Torbay,’ while between them, the French ‘Thesee’ sinks by the bows.
This was largely due to water swamping through her lower and forward leeward gunports in the heavy seas, since this battle was an example of the disadvantage of fighting with the ‘weather gauge’ (the generally assumed benefit of being to windward).
Info nedenfor stammer fra Wikipedia.org
Pocock blev født i Bristol i 1740; søn af en sømand, han fulgte i sin fars erhverv og var skibsfører på et handelsskib i en alder af 26.
I sin tid på havet, han blev en dygtig kunstner ved at lave blæk og vaske skitser af skibe og kystscener til sine logbøger.
I 1778, Pococks arbejdsgiver, Richard Champion, blev økonomisk insolvent på grund af virkningerne af den amerikanske revolutionskrig på transatlantisk handel.
Som resultat, Pocock opgav havet og dedikerede sig til at male; med det første af hans værker udstillet af British Royal Academy of Arts i 1782.
Senere samme år, Pocock fik til opgave at producere en række malerier, der illustrerede George Rodneys sejr i slaget ved Saintes; og som favorit hos Samuel Hood blev han udnævnt til marinemaler for kong George.
Pococks marinemalerier inkorporerede omfattende forskning, herunder interview med øjenvidner om vejr og vindforhold samt positionerne, tilstand, og udseendet af deres skibe; og tegning af detaljerede planer for slaget og foreløbige skitser af individuelle skibe.
Han var også selv til stede ved den herlige første juni i 1794, ombord på fregatten HMS Pegasus. Ud over hans store oliemalerier, der skildrer søslag, Pocock producerede også mange akvareller af kyst- og skibsscener.