The Toulon Blockade

Image size: 15 x 25 inches (38 x 63.5 cm)   
Paper size: 20 x 29 inches (50.5 x 73.5 cm)

 

Edition of 150 on Canvas - standard size:  
Image: 18 x 30 inches (45.5 x 76 cm)

 

Edition of 100 on Canvas - large size:  
Image: 21 x 35 inches (53 x 89 cm)

The newly-captured HMS Surprise (ex l’Unité) reporting to HMS Victory for orders...
Sunset, 19th June 1796.   

Geoff Hunt confirmed from Surprise's logbook that this ship, famous in fact and fiction, met up with the great Victory. This took place only two months after the real Surprise had been captured from the French (for whom she had been named l'Unité) when, in June 1796 on her first commission, Captain Miller was ordered to report with Surprise to Admiral Sir John Jervis, then commanding the blockade of Toulon from HMS Victory.

Surprise stayed with the fleet for only a day and a night before being ordered to the Adriatic and so this painting is of a perhaps unique meeting of two of the greatest names in naval mythology - and has a suitably beautiful and romantic atmosphere.