Portsmouth Harbour with Prison Hulks (ca. 1814)

Louis Garneray: Portsmouth Harbour with Prison Hulks

In this powerful painting, the line of prison ships forms a dark diagonal across the image from the left foreground to the centre of the picture. Behind these ships, to the south-east, lies the town of Portsmouth, its skyline visible against the sky in the centre, with Gosport to the right and the entrance to the Harbour in the centre. To the right other ships, with pennants flying, are also anchored 'in ordinary' (reserve) in the Upper Harbour, including what appear to be two large Spanish prizes. In the foreground small craft have been depicted with their sails billowing in the stiff breeze... The loss of the American colonies in the 1770s as a place to send prisoners condemned to transportation created an acute shortage of prison space. There was not time to build more prisons so as a temporary measure some ships were converted into prison hulks, which could easily be made secure although the conditions aboard their often-rotting hulls were tough. It was during the French Wars of 1793 to 1815 that the greatest use of hulks was made to accommodate additional prisoners of war. They included the artist, Louis Garneray, who was captured from a French privateer and was one of a family of artists. Garneray later wrote three popular autobiographies recounting his adventurous double career as a sailor, sometime corsair, and an artist. After leaving home aged 13 to go to sea, he quickly discovered that captains wanted him to depict their brave deeds, which he did until he was captured by the English in 1806. From then until 1814 he was detained in the harbour at Portsmouth, imprisoned on various 'pontons' (prisons made from the hulks of captured and disable French ships moored in the mud) but somehow managed to paint and sell his work for a pittance. This helped improve his conditions in captivity, in the way that many other prisoners also did by making ship models or other handicrafts. When Napoleon abdicated, the British freed their prisoners and Garneray returned to Paris, continuing to work as an artist. [Royal Museums Greenwich]