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The Fighting Temeraire
J. M. W. Turner
Turner's elegy for a Trafalgar warship under tow to the breaker's yard, and a work the artist refused to sell.
- Artist
- J. M. W. Turner
- Date
- 1839
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 90.7 × 121.6 cm
- Location
- National Gallery, London
History
What the record shows
The ninety-eight-gun HMS Temeraire fought at Trafalgar in 1805 and was towed up the Thames to Rotherhithe to be broken up in 1838.
Turner called the painting his darling and declined every offer for it during his lifetime, bequeathing it to the nation in 1851.
Turner's experimental use of unstable pigments and thin glazes makes the surface highly sensitive to solvent and to environmental fluctuation.
Provenance
Chain of ownership
- 01Exhibited Royal Academy, 1839
- 02Retained by the artist until his death, 1851
- 03Turner Bequest to the nation, 1856
- 04National Gallery, London
