Study for the painting of Bombardment of Algiers, 1816 RMG PW5973

Study for the painting of Bombardment of Algiers, 1816
Despite his humble origins in the north east of England, George Chambers became one of the most promising of the English marine painters of the 1830s, but died tragically young in 1840. One of his most important commissions was the large painting of the Bombardment of Algiers painted for Greenwich Hospital in 1836, twenty years after the event. Chambers took great pains to be accurate, even travelling to Plymouth to sketch men-of-war there. In the end, the picture was not well received by the naval community at Greenwich. Chambers' painting of the gunpowder smoke was criticised as well as the 'inky or purply haze' that the picture was thought to have. This study, one of several in the Museum's collection, shows Chambers' use of viewer's perspective which considerably increased the dramatic effect of the finished picture.

Study for the painting of Bombardment of Algiers, 1816