Lemuel Francis Abbott: Captain John Cooke |
Artist | | |
Title | Captain John Cooke (1762–1805) |
Object type | painting object_type QS:P31,Q3305213 |
Genre | portrait |
Description | English: From the museum's website A half-length portrait of Captain John Cooke wearing a captain's full-dress uniform (over three years), 1795-1812; sea and sky form the background. He was captain of the 'Nymphe' when, together with the 'San Fiorenzo', they captured the French frigates, 'Résistance' and 'Constance' off Brest in March 1797. He was killed at Trafalgar when commanding the 'Bellerophon', being one of two captains to die there: the other was George Duff of the 'Mars'. The 'Bellerophon' was engaged in close action with the French 'L'Aigle'. At 11 minutes past one, while reloading his pistols for the third time, Cooke was shot in the chest and fell to the deck. A 14-year-old midshipman, George Pearson, rushed forward to lend assistance but he was felled by a splinter. Mortally wounded, Cooke's last words to his quartermaster were 'Let me lay one minute'. |
Depicted people | John Cooke |
Date | between circa 1797 and circa 1803 date QS:P571,+1500-00-00T00:00:00Z/6,P1319,+1797-00-00T00:00:00Z/9,P1326,+1803-00-00T00:00:00Z/9,P1480,Q5727902 |
Medium | oil on canvas medium QS:P186,Q296955;P186,Q12321255,P518,Q861259 |
Dimensions | height: 76.2 cm (30 in); width: 63.5 cm (25 in) dimensions QS:P2048,76.2U174728 dimensions QS:P2049,63.5U174728 |
Collection | institution QS:P195,Q1199924 |
Current location | |
Accession number | BHC2629 |
Object history | Presented to Greenwich Hospital in 1848 by Elizabeth Cooke, née Austen, the widow of Christopher Cooke, Cooke's elder brother. |
Notes | The art critic, Albert Charles Sewter, writing in the May 1955 edition of the The Connoisseur magazine, stated that he believed that the picture was finished by another hand, and that this hand belonged possibly to Benjamin Marshall: The gold braid and the epaulettes and buttons on Cooke's full-dress uniform (which he could have worn any time after 1795) are quite unlike the sensitive touch of Abbott himself, which is seen only in the head and in the background. The 'brassiness and rather flashy boldness' of the epaulettes are entirely typical of Marshall's execution.
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References | |
Source/Photographer | https://www.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/rmgc-object-14103 |
Other versions | |