J.M.W. Turner | The Fighting Temeraire

About The Fighting Temeraire by J.M.W. Turner

HMS Temeraire was a 98-gun ship of the line that fought at Trafalgar in 1805, second in the column behind Nelson's Victory, and came to the flagship's rescue at the height of the battle. By 1838 she was a hulk, and in September that year she was sold for scrap and towed up the Thames from Sheerness to a breaker's yard at Rotherhithe. Turner, then in his sixties, painted her final journey the following year.

The old warship rides in the left half of the picture, pale and ghostly, her masts and rigging restored by Turner's imagination (they had already been stripped). Ahead of her a squat black steam tug drives forward, its funnel throwing a plume of fire and smoke. The right half of the canvas is given over to the sunset: a wall of orange, red and gold that Turner built up with a palette knife and thick paint, dropping to a cold blue on the far left where a sliver of moon hangs above the water.

The picture is about the passing of an age, sail giving way to steam, and Turner knew it. He called it "my darling", refused every offer to buy it, and left it to the nation with the rest of his work. In 2005 the British public voted it the greatest painting in the country, and since 2020 it has appeared on the Bank of England's £20 note.

Own a hand-painted The Fighting Temeraire

This is not a print. Every painting we sell is reproduced in oils on canvas, by hand, by professional artists — no giclée, no computer-generated technique.

Turner built that sunset out of thick, knifed paint, with the ship laid in thin, almost transparent glazes beside it. The contrast between the two is the painting, and it only exists as texture on canvas. A hand-painted reproduction rebuilds both surfaces; a print flattens them into one.

• A range of sizes — choose yours above.
• Framed and ready to hang, gallery wrap, or rolled canvas if you would rather frame it yourself.
• 30-day money-back guarantee, no questions.
• Free delivery Australia-wide. Australian owned and operated, with a local contact you can actually reach.