Bombardment of Algiers | |
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Artist | Thomas Luny |
Year | 1820 |
Medium | Oil-on-canvas |
Dimensions | 122 cm× 183 cm(48 in× 72 in) |
Bombardment of Algiers is one of a number of oil-on-canvas paintings by British artist Thomas Luny depicting the heavy bombardment of the harbour of Algiers by a fleet of Anglo-Dutch ships under the command of Admiral Lord Exmouth, and the ensuing destruction. The exact date of the paintings creation is not known, but it is signed and dated to 1820 by Luny, four years after the events depicted. [1]
The painting is a portrayal of the Bombardment of Algiers, which took place on 27 August 1816. This campaign was an attempt by the British to end the slavery conducted by the Dey of Algiers, specifically to free the hundreds of Christians that had been enslaved by the Dey. It was the result of the Dey's rejection of previous non-combative negotiations to free these slaves. [2]
The two forces stated in their earlier negotiations that they would not fire the first shot. However, despite the Algerian's plan to board Exmouth's ships in secrecy using small ships, an Algerian ship fired out of line at approximately 3:00 pm, and the Algerian plan was foiled and the battle instigated. [3] After around ten hours, the Algerian fleet were effectively overpowered and subdued by Exmouth's fleet of approximately 28 ships.
Following effective victory, Exmouth dispatched a peace treaty the next day at noon, under the condition that the opposition comply to the terms specified. He expressly stated that if the terms were not agreed with and met, that the combative action would continue. The Dey accepted these terms. However, Exmouth had taken a sizable risk by demanding acceptance by force, because the fleet had actually fired off all of its ammunition. [4]
About a month later, on 24 September, a treaty was signed and sanctioned. This resulted in the freeing of over 1000 Christian slaves, among other things. [3]
The painting is a seascape, as the majority of Luny's works were. [5] It specifically depicts a scene of the bombardment wherein British victory is evidently close. Night has fallen, so it would have been several hours into the assault. Many of Exmouth's ships are seen in the middleground, launching their attack on the shoreline defences. In the foreground, there are several small ships, presumably the Algerian boats that were to be employed in the boarding of Exmouth's ships. Far in the background, the silhouette of mountains behind the port, and the clouded night sky can be seen. Little of the actual port can be seen, as it is shrouded by the billowing smoke.
The only source of lighting in the painting comes from the towering inferno in the approximate centre of the piece, behind Exmouth's ships. In the darkness of the night and the long shadows, it creates a Chiaroscuro effect, introducing stark contrast between light and dark. This is accentuated by the pure blackness that surrounds the scene from all sides. This effect is also seen in some of Luny's other paintings, most similarly in his Battle of the Nile .
The Barbary Wars were a series of two wars fought by the United States, Sweden, and the Kingdom of Sicily against the Barbary states and Morocco of North Africa in the early 19th century. Sweden had been at war with the Tripolitans since 1800 and was joined by the newly independent US. The First Barbary War extended from 10 May 1801 to 10 June 1805, with the Second Barbary War lasting only three days, ending on 19 June 1815. The Barbary Wars were the first major American war fought entirely outside the New World, and in the Arab World.
The Second Barbary War (1815) or the U.S.–Algerian War was fought between the United States and the North African Barbary Coast states of Tripoli, Tunis, and Algiers. The war ended when the United States Senate ratified Commodore Stephen Decatur's Algerian treaty on 5 December 1815. However, Dey Omar Agha of Algeria repudiated the US treaty, refused to accept the terms of peace that had been ratified by the Congress of Vienna, and threatened the lives of all Christian inhabitants of Algiers. William Shaler was the US commissioner in Algiers who had negotiated alongside Decatur, but he fled aboard British vessels during the 1816 bombardment of Algiers. He negotiated a new treaty in 1816 which was not ratified by the Senate until 11 February 1822, because of an oversight.
The Bombardment of Algiers was an attempt on 27 August 1816 by Britain and the Netherlands to end the slavery practices of Omar Agha, the Dey of Algiers. An Anglo-Dutch fleet under the command of Admiral Edward Pellew, 1st Viscount Exmouth bombarded ships and the harbour defences of Algiers.
Thomas Luny (1759–1837), was an English artist who primarily painted seascapes and other marine-based works.
The Barbary slave trade involved the capture and selling of European slaves at slave markets in the Barbary states. European slaves were captured by Barbary pirates in slave raids on ships and by raids on coastal towns from Italy to the Netherlands, Ireland and the southwest of Britain, as far north as Iceland and into the Eastern Mediterranean.
Commander John Pender Paynter R.N. (1788–1856) of Trekenning House, St Columb Major, Cornwall, was an officer of the British Royal Navy noted for his services during the Napoleonic Wars. In 1815 Paynter was appointed Flag Lieutenant to Lord Exmouth on HMS Boyne. In 1816 during the Bombardment of Algiers, Paynter was sent ashore in an attempt to secure the release of Christian slaves and to demand the release from custody of a Colonel Macdonald, the English Consul but was himself seized by the Dey and lodged in the Black Hole. However, the menacing attitude assumed by the British Fleet assured his release.
The invasion of Algiers in 1830 was a large-scale military operation by which the Kingdom of France, ruled by Charles X, invaded and conquered the Deylik of Algiers.
The 2nd Bombardment of Algiers took place between 12 and 21 July 1784. A joint Spanish-Neapolitan-Maltese-Portuguese fleet commanded by the Spanish Admiral Antonio Barceló bombarded the city, which was the main base of the Barbary corsairs, with the aim of forcing them to interrupt their activities. The second bombardment followed a similarly failed expedition the preceding year.
Bombardment of Algiers may refer to:
Omar Agha was the Dey of the Deylik of Algiers from April 1815 to September 1817, after the assassination of his predecessor Mohamed Kharnadji on 7 April 1815, who had been in office for only 17 days.
Rear Admiral William Furlong Wise, was a British naval officer.
The Pirate City: An Algerine Tale, or simply The Pirate City, is a novel written by R. M. Ballantyne that was published in 1874. It is a work of juvenile fiction and adventure fiction which follows the Rimini family. The family disembarks from Sicily on a trading expedition only to be captured by Barbary Pirates and taken to the pirate city of Algiers, which is the present-day capital of Algeria.
The Danish–Algerian War was a conflict lasting from 1769 to 1772 between Denmark–Norway and Deylik of Algiers. which was functionally and mostly independent from the Ottoman Empire. It is also known as the Algerian Expedition, or "The War Against Algeria".
The bombardment of Algiers in 1682 was a naval operation by France against the Regency of Algiers during the French-Algerian War 1681–1688. Louis XIV sent Duquesne to bombard Algiers after the Dey declared war on France in 1681. Duquesne sailed from Toulon with a fleet of around forty vessels and reached Algiers in July 1682 after many delays caused by poor weather. Bombarded several times in August, the city suffered extensive damage. The danger of the corsair captains who managed to manoeuvre their ships so as to threaten the French position and bad weather forced Duquesne to retreat to French waters.
The bombardment of Algiers in 1683 was a French naval operation against the Regency of Algiers during the French-Algerian War 1681–88. It led to the rescue of more than 100 French prisoners, in some cases after decades of captivity, but the great majority of Christian captives in Algiers were not liberated.
Until 1815 the Beylik of Tunis maintained a corsair navy to attack European shipping, raid coastal towns on the northern shores of the Mediterranean and defend against incursions from Algiers or Tripoli. After 1815 Tunis tried, with limited success, to create a modern navy, which fought in the Greek War of Independence and the Crimean War.
The Spanish–Algerian War (1775–1785) was a conflict between the Spanish Empire and the Deylik of Algiers.
The French-Algerian War of 1681–1688 was part of a wider campaign by France against the Barbary Pirates in the 1680s.
The English Expedition to Algiers occurred between 1620 and 1621, it was a naval attack ordered by King James with the goal of ending Muslim piracy.
Slavery is noted in the area later known as Algeria since antiquity. Algeria was a center of the Trans-Saharan slave trade route of enslaved Black Africans from sub-Saharan Africa, as well as a center of the slave trade of Barbary slave trade of Europeans captured by the barbary pirates.