''Nelson and the Bear'' is an 1809

painting Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...

by the British

artist An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating the work of art. The most common usage (in both everyday speech and academic discourse) refers to a practitioner in the visual arts o ...

Richard Westall Richard Westall (2 January 1765 – 4 December 1836) was an English painter and illustrator of portraits, historical and literary events, best known for his portraits of Byron. He was also Queen Victoria's drawing master. Biography We ...

.Hill p. 29 It depicts an incident in 1773 involving

Horatio Nelson Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, 1st Duke of Bronte ( – 21 October 1805) was a Royal Navy officer whose leadership, grasp of strategy and unconventional tactics brought about a number of decisive British naval victories during the French ...

, then a fifteen-year-old

midshipman A midshipman is an officer of the lowest Military rank#Subordinate/student officer, rank in the Royal Navy, United States Navy, and many Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth navies. Commonwealth countries which use the rank include Royal Cana ...

accompanying a

polar expedition Robert Peary and sledge party with flags at the North Pole file:at the South Pole, December 1911.jpg"> Helmer_Hanssen.html" ;"title="Roald Amundsen, Helmer Hanssen">Roald Amundsen, Helmer Hanssen, Sverre Hassel, and Oscar Wisting at the Sout ...

to try and find the

Northwest Passage The Northwest Passage (NWP) is the sea lane between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through the Arctic Ocean, near the northern coast of North America via waterways through the Arctic Archipelago of Canada. The eastern route along the Arctic ...

. Nelson and a friend were at one point attacked by a

polar bear The polar bear (''Ursus maritimus'') is a large bear native to the Arctic and nearby areas. It is closely related to the brown bear, and the two species can Hybrid (biology), interbreed. The polar bear is the largest extant species of bear ...

. Nelson's

musket A musket is a muzzle-loaded long gun that appeared as a smoothbore weapon in the early 16th century, at first as a heavier variant of the arquebus, capable of penetrating plate armour. By the mid-16th century, this type of musket gradually dis ...

misfired and he reversed it to try to beat the bear off with the butt end. His life was likely saved when the ice split in two separating him from the animal. In the background is the

bomb vessel A bomb vessel, bomb ship, bomb ketch, or simply bomb was a type of wooden sailing naval ship. Its primary armament was not cannons (Naval long gun, long guns or carronades) – although bomb vessels carried a few cannons for self-defence – but ...

on which Nelson was a crewmember. One of the ship's guns is seen firing in an attempt to scare off the bear. It omits the presence of Nelson's comrade, showing him confidently standing up to the bear alone.Broglio p. 102 The painting was commissioned by John McArthur and an

engraving Engraving is the practice of incising a design on a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a Burin (engraving), burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or Glass engraving, glass ar ...

made from it by

John Landseer John Landseer (1762/3? – 20 February 1852) was an English landscape engraver. Birth Landseer was born in Lincoln, Lincolnshire, Lincoln in 1769, according to Cosmo Monkhouse, or in London in 1761, according to his son Edwin's biographer ...

. It was then included as one of the illustrations in the two-volume book '' The Life of Lord Nelson'' (1809), one of the first

biographies A biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves more than just basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's experience of these life events. Unlike a profile or curri ...

of Lord Horatio Nelson, which McArthur co-authored with

James Stanier Clarke James Stanier Clarke (1766–1834) was an English cleric, naval author and man of letters. He became librarian in 1799 to George, Prince of Wales (later Prince Regent, then George IV). Early life The eldest son of Edward Clarke and Anne Gren ...

. The painting is in the collection of the

National Maritime Museum The National Maritime Museum (NMM) is a maritime museum in Greenwich, London. It is part of Royal Museums Greenwich, a network of museums in the Maritime Greenwich World Heritage Site. Like other publicly funded national museums in the Unit ...

Greenwich Greenwich ( , , ) is an List of areas of London, area in south-east London, England, within the Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county of Greater London, east-south-east of Charing Cross. Greenwich is notable for its maritime hi ...

References

Bibliography

* Broglio, Ron. ''Beasts of Burden: Biopolitics, Labor, and Animal Life in British Romanticism''. State University of New York Press, 2017. * Hill, Jen. ''White Horizon: The Arctic in the Nineteenth-Century British Imagination''. State University of New York Press, 2009. {{DEFAULTSORT:Nelson and the Bear 1809 paintings Paintings in Royal Museums Greenwich Cultural depictions of Horatio Nelson Polar bears History paintings Paintings by Richard Westall

See also

References

Bibliography