Polly Cornthwaite
Senior Cataloguer
The Collection of the Late Jonathan Janson
Lot 38
Richard Paton(British, 1717-1791)The Anglo-French Action of Providien, off the coast of Ceylon, 1782
25 – 26 October 2022, 14:00 BST
London, KnightsbridgeSold for £22,950 inc. premium
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Rhyanon Demery
Head of Sale
Richard Paton (British, 1717-1791)
The Anglo-French Action of Providien, off the coast of Ceylon, 1782
signed 'R.Paton' (lower left below third ship)
oil on canvas
81 x 123.2cm (31 7/8 x 48 1/2in).
signed 'R.Paton' (lower left below third ship)
oil on canvas
81 x 123.2cm (31 7/8 x 48 1/2in).
Footnotes
Provenance
With The Parker Gallery, London.
Jonathan Janson, UK.
The identification of a battle painting which is neither dated nor carries any artist's inscription, however brief, poses a major puzzle for the cataloguer. However, on the basis of the few clues within the work offered here, it would appear to show the action between Admiral Sir Edward Hughes' Squadron in his second encounter with a similar sized French squadron commanded by Admiral Pierre de Suffren off the coast of Ceylon on 12th April 1782, coincidentally the very same day as Admiral Rodney's historic victory over the French fleet at the battle of the Saintes in the West Indies. In all, Hughes and Suffren fought five successive albeit it inconclusive actions for the maritime supremacy of the Indian Ocean in the seventeen months between February 1782 and June 1783, the results of which greatly strengthened Britain's interests in the sub-continent.