Mansion House Antiques & Fine Art has dated this piece to the 1920s.
1760-d.1803.
NELSON'S EARLY LIFE
Horatio Nelson was born on 29 September 1758 in a rectory in Burnham Thorpe, Norfolk, England, the sixth of eleven children of the Reverend Edmund Nelson and his wife Catherine Suckling.He was named after his godfather Horatio Walpole (1723–1809) then 2nd Baron Walpole, of Wolterton.
Nelson attended Paston Grammar School, North Walsham, until he was 12 years old, and also attended King Edward VI’s Grammar School in Norwich. His naval career began on 1 January 1771, when he reported to the third-rate HMS Raisonnable as an ordinary seaman and coxswain under his maternal uncle, Captain Maurice Suckling, who commanded the vessel. Shortly after reporting aboard, Nelson was appointed a midshipman and began officer training. Early in his service, Nelson discovered that he suffered from seasickness, a chronic complaint that dogged him for the rest of his life.
HISTORICAL BATTLES
Nelson took part in the Battle of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, where his attack was defeated and he was badly wounded, losing his right arm, and was forced to return to England to recuperate. The following year, he won a decisive victory over the French at the Battle of the Nile and remained in the Mediterranean to support the Kingdom of Naples against a French invasion. In 1801, he was dispatched to the Baltic and won another victory, this time over the Danes at the Battle of Copenhagen. He subsequently commanded the blockade of the French and Spanish fleets at Toulon and, after their escape, chased them to the West Indies and back but failed to bring them to battle. After a brief return to England, he took over the Cádiz blockade in 1805. On 21 October 1805, the Franco-Spanish fleet came out of port, and Nelson's fleet engaged them at the Battle of Trafalgar. The battle was Britain's greatest naval victory, but during the action, Nelson, aboard HMS Victory, was fatally wounded by a French sharpshooter. His body was brought back to England where he was accorded a state funeral.
Nelson's death at Trafalgar secured his position as one of Britain's most heroic figures.Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square, London have been created in his memory.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Lemuel "Francis" Abbott (1760/61 – 5 December 1802) was an English portrait painter, famous for his painting of Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson (currently hanging in the Terracotta Room of number 10 Downing Street) and for those of other naval officers and literary figures of the 18th century.
He was born Lemuel Abbott in Leicestershire in 1760 or 1761, the son of clergyman Lemuel Abbott, curate of Anstey (and later vicar of Thornton) and his wife Mary.In 1775, at the age of 14, he became a pupil of Francis Hayman and lived in London.
Abbott painted portraits of many figures of the day including leading seamen such as Admiral Nelson (starting work on the portrait during the time that he was living in the same lodgings in Bond Street where Nelson was recuperating after losing his arm) Admiral Sir Robert Calder, Rear-Admiral Sir Thomas Pasley and Captain William Locker.
In 1780, Abbott married Anna Maria, and again settled in London, residing for many years in Caroline Street in Bloomsbury. Although he exhibited at the Royal Academy, he never became an Academician. It is said due to overwork, he was declared insane in 1798 and was treated by Dr Thomas Munro (1759–1833), the chief physician to Bethlem Hospital.
Abbott died in London on 5 December 1802
CONDITION
Good Order just minor marks edge of frame.
DELIVERY: UK £30
Mansion House Antiques & Fine Art has dated this piece to the 1920s.
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Admiral Lord Nelson After Lemuel Francis Abbott Oil Portrait Painting Battle of Trafalgar
