The Opening of the Battle of the Nile
On the evening of 1 August 1798, Rear-Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson found the French Mediterranean fleet at anchor in Aboukir Bay, at the mouth of the Nile - the end of a two-month search across the length of the Mediterranean after Napoleon's invasion force had slipped past him at sea. This painting captures the opening of the battle that followed, seen from aboard the French ship Peuple Souverain, fifth in Vice-Admiral Brueys' line, as the British fleet closes in under sail.
Nelson's flagship, HMS Vanguard — a 74-gun third-rate, still showing the jury-rigged repairs from an earlier storm — is the prominent ship on the centre right of the picture. On the far left background, the leading British ships under Captain Thomas Foley have already found water deep enough to round the head of the French line and attack from the landward side, a manoeuvre Brueys had not thought possible, catching his fleet in a crossfire.
By nightfall the battle had turned decisively: the French flagship L'Orient exploded after catching fire, and all but two of Brueys' ships of the line were captured, burned, or destroyed. The victory cut Napoleon's army in Egypt off from resupply, ended any serious French threat to India, and restored British naval dominance in the Mediterranean after a difficult year. Nelson returned from the Nile a national hero.
This was exhibited at the Royal Society of Marine Artists Annual Exhibition in 2025 and was delivered to a collector in Italy.
The research the painting was built on
For this painting, I drew on a range of sources. Maps of the battle were the starting point, enabling me to mark out the positions of each ship at key points and establish the time I wanted to depict. Then accounts of the battle, including other notes like hull colouring, fill in some of the atmosphere and specifics of the scene. For each ship in turn, I worked from the plans where available to contruct them in perspective, and then completed the details by looking to models and academic texts on subjects like rigging. The painting was created over a period of about 3 - 4 months.
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