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Creator:
John Thomas Serres, 1759–1825
Title:

Port Mahon, Minorca with British Men-of-War at Anchor

Date:
ca. 1795
Medium:
Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
20 3/8 x 30 1/4 inches (51.8 x 76.8 cm)
Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:

Label on verso, lower center: “Arthur Ackermann & Son Ltd: | Establishment for the Sale | of | Sporting | Prints, Drawings, & Paintings, | 3, Old Bond Streent, London. W. 1. | Established | 1783 | [drawing of hunters and dogs]”; upper center: “H 103”

Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1976.7.68
Classification:
Paintings
Collection:
Paintings and Sculpture
Link to Frame:
B1976.7.68FR
Subject Terms:
anchor | boats | cemetery | donkey | gathering | hills | island | landscape | marine art | men | men-of-war | port | sea | ships | water
Associated Places:
Europe | Mahon | Menorca | Spain
Access:
Not on view
Note: To make an appointment to see this work, please contact the Paintings and Sculpture department at ycba.paintings@yale.edu. Please visit the Paintings and Sculpture collections page on our website for more details.
Link:
https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:302
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Port Mahon, on the island of Minorca, was the main British naval base in the Mediterranean, first captured in 1708 and made a British possession by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713; a Royal Dockyard was established there in 1715. Port Mahon was lost and recaptured numerous times during the wars of the eighteenth century. John Thomas Serres’s painting shows British ships anchored in the natural harbor during the period of the French Revolutionary Wars known as the First Coalition, in which an uneasy alliance existed between Britain and Spain. The following year, Spain was persuaded to become an ally of France, but in 1798 the British again recaptured the island, which was finally ceded to Spanish control in 1802. The view shown here is from the north toward the town of Mahon, with the church spire of Santa Maria barely visible in the haze.

Gallery label for Spreading Canvas - Eighteenth-Century British Marine Painting (Yale Center for British Art, 2016-09-09 - 2016-12-04)

Spreading Canvas - Eighteenth - Century British Marine Painting (Yale Center for British Art, 2016-09-09 - 2016-12-04) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]

Malcolm Cormack, Concise Catalogue of Paintings in the Yale Center for British Art, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 1985, pp. 200-201, N590.2 A83 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Malcolm Cormack, Seascapes : Yale Center for British Art., , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 1977, p. [ 6 ], no. 22, V 1909 (YCBA) Vertical File [YCBA]

Eleanor Hughes, Spreading Canvas : Eighteenth-Century British Marine Painting, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 2016, p. 219, cat. 79, ND 1373.G74 S67 2016 (YCBA) [YCBA]


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