Prison Hulk in Portsmouth Harbour

Image credit: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London

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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 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. A swathe of pink cloud dominates the picture and symbolically progresses from dark immediately above the hulks to a more brilliant light above the channel leading to the open sea and France. 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.

National Maritime Museum

London

Title

Prison Hulk in Portsmouth Harbour

Date

c.1810

Medium

oil on panel

Measurements

H 26.6 x W 53.3 cm

Accession number

BHC1923

Work type

Painting

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National Maritime Museum

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