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Notes
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Greenwich Hospital, flying the Union flag over the Governor's House in the King Charles Court, dominates the right of the picture, from which inmates, through several open windows, look out at the scene. The Bellot obelisk, standing in the foreground to the right of centre, was erected in memory of Lieutenant Joseph-René Bellot of the French Navy who drowned after falling through ice in the Wellington Channel in August 1853 while carrying despatches from Beechey Island to Sir Edward Belcher's squadron, then searching for the lost 1845 Arctic expedition of Sir John Franklin. The memorial is shown erected on a low mound with the word 'BELLOT' clearly visible; iron railings are being put up around it. The River Thames lies to the far left of the picture.
The painting has been signed and indistinctly dated 1857 by the artist, who appears to have exhibited it at the Royal Academy in that year with this description: “‘The Bellot Memorial’. The last remark made by Lieutenant Bellot to his men who were with him was as follows: ‘Considering it as my duty as an officer to be at the post of danger I would rather die here [on the ice] than go ashore to be saved’”. How the picture entered the Greenwich Hospital Collection is not immediately clear since it is not in the 1922 printed catalogue of the Naval Gallery.
On his father's death, the artist was admitted, aged 11, to the Greenwich Hospital School on the recommendation of E. H. Locker, the Hospital Secretary and one of his father's patrons. This fact suggests he may subsequently have gone to sea, since this was a general condition of entry. He painted attractive oil sketches of the Thames in a rather fluid medium but his larger pictures are less accomplished than his father's, also named George Chambers.
Title
The Bellot Memorial at Greenwich Hospital
Date
1857
Medium
oil on canvas
Measurements
H 80 x W 113 cm
Accession number
BHC2393
Acquisition method
National Maritime Museum (Greenwich Hospital Collection)
Work type
Painting
National Maritime Museum
Romney Road, Greenwich, London, Greater London SE10 9NF England
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