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| Charles Robert Ricketts, 'Royal Sovereign, Donegal, Royal Alfred & Marlborough in Portsmouth Harbour' (painting, 1876) |
The title of the work identifies the four warships depicted from left to right: 'Royal Sovereign, Donegal, Royal Alfred & Marlborough in Portsmouth Harbour, 1876'.
This medium large oil on canvas (within Ricketts's oeuvre) measures 69 cm by 48 cm. It is signed in the lower left corner: 'C.R. Ricketts '76'.
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| Charles Robert Ricketts, 'Royal Sovereign, Donegal, Royal Alfred & Marlborough in Portsmouth Harbour' (painting, 1876): signature |
The Armoury of St. James's description provides us with this information about the painting:
The artist's inscription identifies these vessels from left to right as four mid-19th century warships in Portsmouth Harbour. The vessel in the distance on the far left is HMS Marlborough, a first-rate three-decker 131-gun screw-driven ship built in 1855. She served as the flagship of the Mediterranean Fleet from 1858 to 1864, and returned to Portsmouth to become a supply and accommodation ship in 1870. Next is the broadside ironclad HMS Royal Alfred. Commissioned in 1867 as the flagship of the North America Station, she served six years until an engineering survey discovered her boilers were so badly corroded that she had to be laid up prior to sale in 1885. To starboard of Royal Alfred is HMS Donegal, a 101-gun screw ship launched in 1858. In 1865 she took the final surrender of the American Civil War when the commerce raider CSS Shenandoah struck the Confederate colours to her. Donegal was hulked in 1886 and was merged into the Torpedo School HMS Vernon. Lastly on the far right is the experimental turret ship Royal Sovereign. The first of her kind, she was commissioned for service in the English Channel, and was used for gun and turret testing and evaluation. She paid off in October 1866 and was attached to the naval gunnery school HMS Excellent until 1873.
