The hero of the Nile [graphic] / Js. Gillray del. & fect.

[London] : Pubd. Decr. 1st, 1798, by H. Humphrey, No. 27 St. James's Street, [1 December 1798]

1 print : etching with engraving and stipple ; plate mark 35.1 x 24 cm, on sheet 40.8 x 28 cm

wove paper.

Title etched below image.

From a collection in twelve volumes probably compiled by Francis Harvey and sold at auction, Sotheby, London, June 1900. Bequest of Hugh Dudley Auchincloss to Yale University Library, 1981. Bound by Riviere & Son in three-quarters red morocco with gold tooling and gold lettering on spine.

"Nelson stands directed slightly to the left, wearing a peer's robe over his uniform and the jewel and star of the Bath. In his cocked hat is the diamond aigrette (chelengk, or plume of triumph) presented to him by the Sultan, and now in the Maritime Museum, Greenwich. His left hand rests on the hilt of a cutlass, 'L'Epee de l'Amiral de la Grande Nation'. He stands on a boarded floor (or deck) with a background of clouds. In a vignette beneath the design is an adaptation of the augmentation of arms granted to him in November when he was created Baron Nelson of the Nile and Burnham-Thorpe with a pension of £2,000 a year. The supporters (granted after St. Vincent) are: dexter, a sailor (unarmed instead of armed) holding up a palm (added 1798), and sinister, a lion also holding up a palm (added 1798) and with a tricolour flag in its teeth. Both are burlesqued. Below the (correct) disabled ship, palm-tree, and ruinous battery, Gillray has added, in place of the correct arms, a full purse with a scroll: '£2000 pr Ann'. The motto ('Palmam qui meruit ferat') and crest, a naval crown with the chelengk, are correct."--British Museum online catalogue.

English

July 16, 2015