Thomas Luny

(British, 1759-1837)

A Squadron of the Blue off Portsmouth, with a frigate departing, a naval cutter and the flagship of an Admiral of the Blue signalling

Footnotes

Provenance
The Collection of Willis Group, global insurance brokers

A Squadron of the Blue off Portsmouth depicts the most important naval base in Britain, from which in 1803 departed Nelson's fleet, destined after two years' wandering for the final showdown with the French at Trafalgar. Luny shows a breezy day with high-piled cumulus clouds moulded by sunlight and a pinkish glow in the east suggestive of morning. To the right, a thirty-eight gun frigate, sailing on the wind, heads for the Channel, her long naval pennant streaming back westwards. The thirty-eight was a standard size for British frigates in the 1790s; she would have carried eighteen-pounder long guns on her main deck. Her trim, black with a broad ochre stripe along the main deck, is also typical of the 1790s.

In the central distance another frigate passes through the narrow entrance to Portsmouth Harbour, with the Round Tower, part of Henry VIII's fortifications, to the right and the Gosport fortifications to the left. Her sails catch the sun, making a brilliant focus on the horizon. Further left is an anchored three-decker of ninety, ninety-eight or a hundred guns, sails tightly furled, flying signal flags and wearing the flag of a full Admiral of the Blue at the main. She fires a signal gun to windward, possibly some message for the departing frigate; the smoke billows back over the deck. In the left middleground a naval cutter moves briskly, close-hauled on the breeze. Such boats were used for running errands between larger vessels but, being fast and weatherly, could also take on smugglers and enemy privateers: she would have carried twelve four-pounder guns, or carronades, stubby but highly destructive armament. Like the other vessels in the painting, the cutter wears the Blue ensign, being attached to a squadron under the command of an Admiral of the Blue. The Union in the canton lacks the red saltire cross of St Patrick, indicating that this painting was made before the Union of Great Britain and Ireland on 1st January 1801. Behind the cutter is an anchored two-decker, a sixty-four or seventy-four gun ship of the line. A humble fishing boat bobs on the shadowed sea in the foreground, throwing the glorious panoply of the Royal Navy into relief. Luny's low viewpoint enhances the elegant lines of the warships and gives a great sense of immediacy, of riding on the choppy waves.

Report based on information on topography and details of shipping by Roger Quarm of the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich and Roger Marsh.

Thomas Luny was the son of Thomas Luny and his wife Elizabeth Wallace. He was probably born in Cornwall and was baptised at St Ewe near Mevagissey on 20th May 1759. His mother had a son from a previous marriage, Captain James Wallace (1754-1832), who served with Nelson at Copenhagen in 1801. By 1773 Luny was apprenticed to the marine painter Francis Holman (1729-1784), giving Holman's address at Johnson Street, St George's when he sent his first exhibit to the Society of Artists in 1777. In 1781/82 he moved to Ratcliffe Highway, Stepney. Luny exhibited at the Society of Artists again in 1778, at the Free Society in 1783 and sent pictures to the Royal Academy from 1780 to 1793. He painted London views, portraits of East Indiamen and battle scenes.

Luny exhibited no works between 1793 and 1802 and it was once thought that he served as a purser in the Royal Navy; this has now been discounted. His painting subjects suggest that he travelled, but there is no direct evidence for this except a visit to Paris in 1777. In 1791 he bought a property at 16 Mark Lane, between Leadenhall Street and the Thames, and by 1795 he was earning enough to invest regularly in government stocks. In mid-1807 he moved (probably for reasons of health) to Teignmouth, a fashionable watering place on the Devon coast popular with retired naval officers. A number of them became friends and patrons, notably Captain George Tobin, an amateur artist. In 1808-9 he built a handsome house on the harbour front in Teign Street, later called Luny House.

Luny was a prolific producer of Devon coastal views, shipping scenes and naval events, despite suffering so severely from arthritis that he had to paint with the brush strapped to his wrist. He sent a Battle of the Nile to the Royal Academy in 1802 and three paintings in 1837, the year that there was an exhibition of 130 of his paintings in Old Bond Street. Luny died at Teignmouth on 30th September 1837.