The Flagmen of Lowestoft are a collection of thirteen paintings by Sir Peter Lely, painted in the mid-1660s. They were originally part of the Royal Collections, though most were given to Greenwich Hospital in the nineteenth century, and are now in the National Maritime Museum in London. The paintings are of prominent naval officers, most of them of flag rank, who had fought at the Battle of Lowestoft in 1665. Lely at the time was Principal Painter to King Charles II.
The paintings were commissioned from Lely by James, Duke of York, brother of King Charles II, in late 1665. [1] James had commanded the English fleet against the Dutch at the Battle of Lowestoft on 13 June 1665, and the portraits were intended to commemorate those who had served under him as junior flag officers and captains of some of the ships. [2] Lely, Principal Painter to King Charles II, was working on the series known as the 'Windsor Beauties' at the time for James's wife, Anne Hyde, Duchess of York. [3] The full set consists of thirteen portraits of admirals and senior officers, or 'Flaggmen' as they were known at the time. [2]
Diarist and naval administrator Samuel Pepys visited Lely's studio on 18 April 1666, writing
I to Mr. Lilly's [ sic ], the painter; and there saw the heads, some finished and all begun, of the Flaggmen in the late great fight with the Duke of Yorke against the Dutch. The Duke of Yorke hath them done to hang in his chamber, and very finely they are done indeed. [4]
He noted that work had begun on all but three portraits, those of the Earl of Sandwich, Sir Jeremiah Smith and Sir William Penn, had yet to be started. The absence of Lawson's portrait in Pepys's list may indicate that this was a later addition to the original commission, Lawson having died on 25 June 1665 of a wound he received in the battle. Since Lawson was already dead and the portrait had not been begun by 1666, it was possibly a posthumous addition to the set. [5] To create unity and emphasise the portraits as being part of a group, Lely painted them in an identical format, all three-quarter length, and on canvases measuring roughly 50 inches (130 cm) by 40 inches (100 cm). [3]
Art historian Ellis Waterhouse assessed the series and declared that 'In such works Lely's splendid prose borders upon the poetry of the great masters'. [1] Brandon Henderson wrote
Strength, depth of character, and psychological interest characterize these portraits, in which Lely brings forth honest and direct likenesses, dramatic gestures, serious-mindedness, dignity and pride. Each portrait in the series is remarkably individual, with fresh and varied poses, costume, attributes and experiences. [1]
Lely's series acted as a 'precedent and a paradigm' for Sir Godfrey Kneller's 'Kit-Cat' portraits, 42 portraits of members of the Kit-Cat Club, painted between 1697 and 1721, albeit half-length and on a different size of canvas, later known as the Kit-cat. [3]
Thirteen individual portraits were created for the Royal Collections. In 1824 King George IV donated 31 paintings with naval connections to Greenwich Hospital, in support of the hospital's director, Edward Hawke Locker, who aimed to establish a naval gallery. [6] Eleven of the flagmen portraits were included in the donation. [2] The exceptions were the portraits of Admiral Sir John Lawson and Prince Rupert, which were retained in the Royal Collections. A copy of Lawson's portrait was instead presented in lieu of the original. George's successor, King William IV, presented an extended full-length copy of the Prince Rupert portrait to the Hospital in 1835. [2] The portraits are now held by the successor of Greenwich Hospital, the National Maritime Museum. [2]
| Name | Life | Dimensions | Position | Year | Image |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| George Monck, 1st Duke of Albemarle | (1608–1670) | 127 x 101.5 cm | Deputy Lord High Admiral to James, Duke of York | 1665–66 |  |
| Sir Thomas Allin, 1st Baronet | (1612–1685) | 127 x 101.5 cm | Vice-Admiral in the centre division of the red squadron | 1665 |  |
| Sir George Ayscue | (c. 1615–1672) | 127 x 101.5 cm | Vice-Admiral in the rear division of the blue squadron | 1665–66 |  |
| Sir William Berkeley | (1639–1666) | 127 x 101.5 cm | Rear-Admiral in the rear division of the red squadron | 1665–66 |  |
| Sir John Harman | (d. 1673) | 127 x 101.5 cm | Flag captain to James, Duke of York aboard HMS Royal Charles | 1666 |  |
| Sir Joseph Jordan | (1603/4–1685) | 127 x 101.5 cm | Rear-Admiral in the van division of the red squadron | 1666 |  |
| Sir John Lawson | (c.1615–1665) | 127 x 101.5 cm | Vice-Admiral in the van division of the red squadron |  | |
| Sir Christopher Myngs | (c.1625–1666) | 127 x 101.5 cm | Vice-Admiral in the van division of the white squadron | 1665–66 |  |
| Sir William Penn | (1621–1670) | 127 x 101.5 cm | Captain of the Fleet to James, Duke of York aboard HMS Royal Charles | 1665–66 |  |
| Prince Rupert of the Rhine | (1619–1682) | 127 x 101.5 cm [a] | Admiral of the White squadron | 1665–66 |  |
| Edward Montagu, 1st Earl of Sandwich | (1625–1672) | 127 x 101.5 cm | Admiral of the Blue squadron | 1666 |  |
| Sir Jeremiah Smith | (d. 1675) | 127 x 101.5 cm | Commander of HMS Mary in the centre division of the red squadron | 1666 |  |
| Sir Thomas Teddeman | (c.1620–1668) | 127 x 101.5 cm | Rear-Admiral in the rear division of the blue squadron | 1666 |  |
a. ^ The dimensions and details are for Lely's original portrait, still held in the Royal Collections. The image is however the full-length copy presented to Greenwich Hospital.
Greenwich is a town in south-east London, England, within the ceremonial county of Greater London. It is situated 5.5 miles (8.9 km) east-south-east of Charing Cross.
The National Maritime Museum (NMM) is a maritime museum in Greenwich, London. It is part of Royal Museums Greenwich, a network of museums in the Maritime Greenwich World Heritage Site. Like other publicly funded national museums in the United Kingdom, it has no general admission charge; there are admission charges for most side-gallery temporary exhibitions, usually supplemented by many loaned works from other museums.
Greenwich Hospital was a permanent home for retired sailors of the Royal Navy, which operated from 1692 to 1869. Its buildings, in Greenwich, London, were later used by the Royal Naval College, Greenwich and the University of Greenwich, and are now known as the Old Royal Naval College. The word "hospital" was used in its original sense of a place providing hospitality for those in need of it, and did not refer to medical care, although the buildings included an infirmary which, after Greenwich Hospital closed, operated as Dreadnought Seaman's Hospital until 1986.
Queen's House is a former royal residence built between 1616 and 1635. It was built near the now demolished Greenwich Palace, a few miles downriver from the City of London and is now in the London borough of Greenwich. It presently forms a central focus of what is now the Old Royal Naval College with a grand vista leading to the River Thames. The Queen's House architect, Inigo Jones, was commissioned by Queen Anne of Denmark in 1616 and again to finish the house in 1635 by Queen Henrietta Maria. The Queen's House was commissioned by both Anne and Henrietta as a place to display artworks they had accumulated and commissioned; this includes a ceiling of the Great Hall that features a work by Orazio Gentileschi titled Allegory of Peace and the Arts.
Sir William Penn was an English admiral and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1660 to 1670. He was the father of William Penn, founder of the colonial Province of Pennsylvania, which is now Pennsylvania.
Royal Charles was an 80-gun first-rate three-decker ship of the line of the English Navy. She was built by Peter Pett and launched at Woolwich Dockyard in 1655, for the navy of the Commonwealth of England. She was originally called Naseby, named in honour of Sir Thomas Fairfax's decisive 1645 victory over the Royalist forces during the English Civil Wars. She was ordered in 1654 as one of a programme of four second rates, intended to carry 60 guns each. However, she was altered during construction to mount a complete battery of guns along the upper deck, and so was reclassed as a first rate.
Events from the year 1666 in art.
Sir Peter Lely was a painter of Dutch origin whose career was nearly all spent in England, where he became the dominant portrait painter to the court. He became a naturalised British subject and was knighted in 1679.
The Society for Nautical Research is a British society that conducts research and sponsors projects related to maritime history worldwide.
HMS Royal Oak was a 100-gun first rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched in 1664 at Portsmouth Dockyard. Royal Oak was built by John Tippetts, Master-Shipwright at Portsmouth 1660-8, who later became Navy Commissioner and subsequently Surveyor of the Navy.
The frigate Gloucester was a Speaker-class third rate, commissioned into the Royal Navy as HMS Gloucester after the restoration of the English monarchy in 1660. The ship was ordered in December 1652, built at Limehouse in East London, and launched in 1654. The warship was conveying James Stuart, Duke of York to Scotland, when on 6 May 1682 she struck a sandbank off the Norfolk coast, and quickly sank. The Duke was among those saved, but as many as 250 people drowned, including members of the royal party; it is thought that James's intransigence delayed the evacuation of the passengers and crew.
London was a 76-gun second-rate ship of the line in the Navy of the Commonwealth of England, originally built at Chatham Dockyard by shipwright John Taylor, and launched in June 1656. She gained fame as one of the ships that escorted Charles II from Holland back to England during the English Restoration, carrying Charles' younger brother James Duke of York, and commanded by Captain John Lawson.
Sir Joseph Jordan was a naval officer and admiral. From a Thames shipowning family, he is initially recorded as importing tobacco from Nevis and Barbados aboard the Amity.
George Knapton (1698–1778) was an English portrait painter and the first portraitist for the Society of Dilettanti in the 1740s. He became Surveyor and Keeper of the King's Pictures from 1765 to 1778.
Sir John Lawson was an English naval officer and republican who served in a number of campaigns, including the First Anglo-Dutch War under Admiral Robert Blake, and the Second Anglo-Dutch War in which he died in battle.
Vice-Admiral Sir William Berkeley was a Royal Navy officer who saw service during the Second Anglo-Dutch War, rising to the rank of vice-admiral.
Sir Jeremiah Smith was an officer of the Royal Navy who saw service during the First and Second Anglo-Dutch Wars, rising to the rank of admiral.
The Royal Naval College, Greenwich, was a Royal Navy training establishment between 1873 and 1998, providing courses for naval officers. It was the home of the Royal Navy's staff college, which provided advanced training for officers. The equivalent in the British Army was the Staff College, Camberley, and the equivalent in the Royal Air Force was the RAF Staff College, Bracknell.
Roger Charles Anderson was an independently-wealthy English maritime historian, collector, and a leading figure in the early years of the Society for Nautical Research and of the Navy Records Society. Four times editor of the Mariner's Mirror, Anderson was also a founder trustee, and later chairman of the board of trustees, of the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. He was a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, and held the higher Doctor of Letters degree. In 2005, the Swedish naval historian Jan Glete characterised Anderson as "one of the most important naval historians of the twentieth century. He mainly wrote about early modern warship technology and used his linguistic skills to write books and essays based on the literature from several countries."
Admiral Sir John Harman was an English officer of the Royal Navy, who served first under the Commonwealth, then Charles II following the 1660 Stuart Restoration.
