The Piazza at Havana | |
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Artist | Dominic Serres |
Year | c.1762–1770 |
Type | Oil on canvas |
Location | National Maritime Museum, London |
The Piazza at Havana is a landscape painting by the French-born British artist Dominic Serres. [1] It depicts the scene during the British occupation of Havana, Cuba following Britain's capture of the city from Spain during the Seven Years' War. [2] British troops in redcoats are shown parading in the Plaza Vieja while British sailors are in the foreground. Serres painted a series of works focusing on the taking of Havana for the Keppel family, three of whom led the British campaign. [3] [4] The title uses the Italian loan word piazza, common in English during the era, rather than the Spanish plaza.
It is part of the collection of the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich, London. It was one of a pair with The Cathedral at Havana a depiction of Havana Cathedral, both showing the city after it had fallen into British hands. [4]
Havana is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of the La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center. It is the most populous city, the largest by area, and the second largest metropolitan area in the Caribbean region. The population in 2012 was 2,154,454 inhabitants, and its area is 728.26 km2 (281.18 sq mi) for the capital city side and 8,475.57 km2 for the metropolitan zone.
The War of Jenkins' Ear was fought by Britain and Spain between 1739 to 1748. The majority of the fighting took place in New Granada and the Caribbean Sea, with major operations largely ended by 1742. It is considered a related conflict of the 1740 to 1748 War of the Austrian Succession.
Cádiz is a city in Spain and the capital of the Province of Cádiz, in the autonomous community of Andalusia. It is located in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula off the Atlantic Ocean separated from neighbouring San Fernando by a narrow isthmus.
Santo Domingo, once known as Santo Domingo de Guzmán, known as Ciudad Trujillo between 1936 and 1961, is the capital and largest city of the Dominican Republic and the largest metropolitan area in the Caribbean by population. As of 2022, the city and immediate surrounding area had a population of 1,029,110 while the total population is 3,798,699 when including Greater Santo Domingo. The city is coterminous with the boundaries of the Distrito Nacional, itself bordered on three sides by Santo Domingo Province.
Santiago de Cuba is the second-largest city in Cuba and the capital city of Santiago de Cuba Province. It lies in the southeastern area of the island, some 870 km (540 mi) southeast of the Cuban capital of Havana.
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.
The Basílica Menor of San Francisco de Asís is a Catholic minor basilica and Franciscan convent in the district of Old Havana, Cuba. Its construction began in 1548 and lasted until 1591, although it was inaugurated in 1575, it was badly damaged by storms in 1680 and 1692, and by a hurricane that broke down its tower in 1694. Started in its current form in 1716, it was completely completed almost 200 years later, with a series of structural reforms from 1731 to 1738.
Old San Juan is a historic district located at the "northwest triangle" of the islet of San Juan in San Juan. Its area roughly correlates to the Ballajá, Catedral, Marina, Mercado, San Cristóbal, and San Francisco sub-barrios (sub-districts) of barrio San Juan Antiguo in the municipality of San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Dominic Serres (1722–1793), also known as Dominic Serres the Elder, was a French-born painter strongly associated with the English school of painting, and with paintings with a naval or marine theme. Such were his connections with the English art world, that he became one of the founding members of the Royal Academy in 1768, and was later briefly its librarian.
The Castillo de los Tres Reyes del Morro, also known as Castillo del Morro, is a fortress guarding the entrance to the Havana harbor. The design is by the Italian engineer Battista Antonelli (1547–1616). Originally under the control of Spain, the fortress was captured by the British in 1762 and returned to Spain under the Treaty of Paris (1763) a year later. The Morro Castle was the primary defense in the Havana harbor until La Cabaña was completed in 1774.
Havana Cathedral is one of eleven Catholic cathedrals on the island. It is located in the Plaza de la Catedral on Calle Empedrado, between San Ignacio y Mercaderes, Old Havana, Havana, Cuba. The thirty by forty-nine meters rectangular church serves as the seat of the Archdiocese of San Cristóbal de la Habana. Christopher Columbus’s remains were kept in the cathedral between 1796 and 1898 before they were taken to Seville Cathedral.
The Castillo de la Real Fuerza is a bastion fort on the western side of the harbour in Havana, Cuba, set back from the entrance, and bordering the Plaza de Armas. Originally built to defend against attack by pirates, it suffered from a poor location; it was too far inside the bay. The fort is considered to be the oldest stone fort in the Americas, and was listed in 1982 as part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of "Old Havana and its Fortifications".
Events from the year 1762 in art.
Castillo San Salvador de la Punta is a fortress at the entrance to the bay in Havana, Cuba.
The Battle of Cartagena de Indias took place during the 1739 to 1748 War of Jenkins' Ear between Spain and Great Britain. The result of long-standing commercial tensions, the war was primarily fought in the Caribbean; the British tried to capture key Spanish ports in the region, including Porto Bello and Chagres in Panama, Havana, and Cartagena de Indias in present-day Colombia.
The siege of Havana was a successful British siege against Spanish-ruled Havana that lasted from March to August 1762, as part of the Seven Years' War. After Spain abandoned its former policy of neutrality by signing the family compact with France, resulting in a British declaration of war on Spain in January 1762, the British government decided to mount an attack on the important Spanish fortress and naval base of Havana, with the intention of weakening the Spanish presence in the Caribbean and improving the security of its own North American colonies. A strong British naval force consisting of squadrons from Britain and the West Indies, and the military force of British and American troops it convoyed, were able to approach Havana from a direction that neither the Spanish governor nor the Admiral expected and were able to trap the Spanish fleet in the Havana harbour and land its troops with relatively little resistance.
The Captaincy General of Cuba was an administrative district of the Spanish Empire created in 1607 as part of Habsburg Spain attempt to better defend and administer its Caribbean possessions. The reform also established captaincies general in Puerto Rico, Guatemala and Yucatán.
John Thomas Serres was an English maritime painter who enjoyed significant success, including exhibiting extensively at the Royal Academy, and was for a time Maritime Painter to King George III.
The Battle of Quiberon Bay is a 1779 history painting by the French-born British artist Dominic Serres. It depicts the naval Battle of Quiberon Bay on 20 November 1759 during the Seven Years' War. The decisive victory of Admiral Hawke's Royal Navy fleet thwarted a French invasion of Britain as part of the Annus Mirabilis.
Princess Charlotte Arriving at Harwich is a 1763 history painting by the French-born British artist Dominic Serres. It shows Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz arriving at the port of Harwich in Essex aboard the royal yacht Royal Charlotte. Charlotte was arriving in England for her wedding with the British monarch George III and their joint coronation at Westminster Abbey. She had sailed from Cuxhaven escorted by the Admiral of the Fleet Lord Anson, at a time when Britain was fighting the Seven Years War against France and its allies. Serres himself travelled to Harwich to record the scene. The ship is shown passing the Landguard Fort on the Suffolk side of the River Orwell with a crowd of onlookers around the Low Lighthouse on the Harwich shore.