It looks like the Musée national de la Marine in Paris has done some more research in recent years, because their website now says that this painting is one of a series of six by Mayer, showing the Bucentaure in action against five British ships at various stages of the battle. See this page:
http://www.musee-marine.fr/cartel2.php?id=55 Curiously, the image is reversed on that page, although not on this one:
http://www.musee-marine.fr/public/virtu ... uerre.htmlThe mystery is that the British three-decker with red ensign has the name
'Sandwich' on her stern. As Robin Brooks' article says, she was a hulk at Chatham at that time. It seems a very strange mistake to make. Her stern does not look much like a British ship from 1805, and it makes me wonder if it has been copied rather too faithfully from a painting of the
Sandwich sailing into the moonlit battle of St Vincent in 1780? Mind you, one of the inaccuracies in the painting is said to be that the ship has open stern galleries, rather than closed, but in fact the Temeraire had an open stern gallery on the quarterdeck, although she had closed stern galleries on the other two decks.
Alternatively, the
Sandwich was a prison ship at Chatham, and held many of the French prisoners from Trafalgar. I wonder whether stories of being imprisoned in the
Sandwich had been misinterpreted as being captured by the
Sandwich?
In the painting, the
Bucentaur looks as though she is surrounded by three-deckers, and I suspect this this may be derived from part of General De Contamine's (inaccurate) account which states:
Quote:
The Victory, Temeraire, and Neptune, threedeckers, took post, one on our quarter, and the other two astern. They fired into us for nearly two hours at half pistol-shot. By 3 o'clock the Bucentaure had received the fire of 11 English ships, most of which passed by and raked us ahead and astern. The ship was dismasted, ' ras comme un ponton,' and the masts and sails fell over to starboard, blocking up the batteries and rendering it impossible to fire at a single point.
In fact the
Victory and
Temeraire had moved on, and probably also the
Neptune by the time the 74-gun two-decker
Conqueror brought down the
Bucentaur's foremast.