1000 - Scott, Samuel (Kreis)

Scott, Samuel (Kreis) London 1702 - Bath (Avon) 1772 114 x 180 cm The Naval Battle at Cape Finisterre. Oil/canvas, relined, verso fragmentary label of The Parker Gallery, 2 Albermarle Street, London W1. Private collection, Hessia. In the so-called War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748), the allies - Great Britain and the United Provinces - were traditionally France’s adversaries. Parts of this war were also fought by the colonial powers, France and Great Britain, in North America and India. For supply purposes and to maintain communications, the French had to secure a link to their possessions in America (New France, including Canada) and India, despite British naval superiority. On 10 May 1747, two groups of military-escorted convoys set sail from France. The first was bound for New France, the second for French India. Britain was aware of these plans and dispatched a fleet under the command of George Anson, which routed the French convoy in the First Battle of Cape Finisterre, captured numerous merchant ships and took the commanders and officers prisoner. Following the second naval defeat in October of the same year, it became clear that France could no longer provide military protection for its large naval convoys, one of the causes of the territorial losses in the French colonial empire. Directly comparable to our work is the painting by Samuel Scott (c. 1750), ‘Vice Admiral Sir George Anson’s Victory of Cape Finisterre’, held at the Yale Centre for British Art, which is almost identical in format (inv.-no. B.1981.25.559). Cf. also Spreading Canvas. Eighteenth-Century British Marine Painting, ed. by Eleanor Hughes, Yale University Press 2016, p. 182 - 193.