James Jenkins

Capture of La Gloire 1795: HMS Astraea under Captain Lord Henry Paulet successful action near the Bay of Biscay. French Revolutionary Wars.



In 1817, James Jenkins published a series of fifty-five aquatint plates under the title The Naval Achievements of Great Britain, From the Year 1793 to 1817. The series followed on from Jenkins’s great success with Martial Achievements and was unprecedented; prior to 1817 there had been no similar publication recording naval events, spanning a period of more than twenty years. However, it was not an immediate success as expected and editions were issued as required.
The work was commissioned to celebrate Britain’s recent victory over France at Waterloo in 1815. Jenkins’s Naval Achievements presents a retrospective account of the Napoleonic Wars fought at sea, documenting British successes for posterity. The majority of the series depicts clashes between individual ships and the capture of enemy ships, but the most sought-after plates are those showing the formations of entire fleets. Particularly notable are those of the famous battles of Copenhagen, The Nile, Cape St. Vincent and Trafalgar. The series also included fine portraits of Lord Nelson and the Earl of St. Vincent.
Based predominately on paintings by Thomas Whitcombe (c.1760-1824), most of the plates in the series were engraved by Thomas Sutherland (1785-1850) using aquatint, a form of etching by tones rather than lines. The original colouring and striking accuracy of the plates, together with Sutherland’s reputation as one of the most important aquatint engravers of the Regency period, mark it as one of the outstanding publications of its time.