The Fighting téméraire tugged to her last berth to be broken up

National Gallery, London

This pictorial elegy has proved to be Turner's most continuously admired late work ever since its debut at the Royal Academy in May 1839. Turner himself considered it his special favourite during his last years, even referring to it as "my darling" and emphatically refusing repeated generous offers of purchase.

The early Victorian London press lavished enthusiastic praise on the "Téméraire", as did the public. The central reason was its theme, consecrating as it did the renowned ninety-eight-gun battleship that had played a crucial role in Nelson's victory off Cape Trafalgar thirty-four years earlier. The painting revived in many English hearts the stirring memory of their country's proudest naval triumph, a memory all the more stirring for being tinged with a nostalgic awareness of a suddenly bygone glorious era. One particular element in the picture drew frequent comment—the magnificent sunset. The sun was setting on the career of the "Téméraire".

Best exemplifying the latter was the lively description by the young Thackeray[1]. After speaking of the "noble river-piece" as not only the best picture in the exhibition, he characterized its subject and mood. "The old "Téméraire" is dragged to her last home by a little, spiteful, diabolical steamer. A mighty red sun, amidst a host of flaring clouds, sinks to rest.... The little demon of a steamer is belching out a volume of foul, lurid red hot malignant smoke, paddling furiously, and lashing up the water round about it; while behind it (a cold grey moon looking down on it), slow, sad, and majestic, follows the brave old ship with death... Turner makes you see and think of a great deal more than the objects before you..."

In Turner's richly suggestive rendering of the subject, the still lofty but powerless ship and the small but aggressive steam-tug are maximally contrasting motifs. The former is much less distinct, seeming enveloped in a mysterious veil of mist and exhibiting a ghostly pallor, which tends to lift it out of the prosaic immediate world. Contrasting more quietly with the great ship than does the hustling tug is the distant square-rigger, outward bound under full sail, which completes the compact triangle of ships.

Louis Hawes. Turner's "Fighting Téméraire". The Art Quarterly. Vol. XXXV, No. 1, 1972.

Turner wished to focus our attention on the tug. Turner has given the proud little steamer lines of grace and beauty, as she glides through the still sea like a black swan, towing the dim hulk of the warship.

John Walker. J. M. W. Turner. N. Y., 1976.

[1] Thackeray, William Makepeace (1811-1863) - famous English satirist, the author of "Vanity Fair"

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