The Fighting Temeraire

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss “The Fighting Temeraire”, one of Turner’s greatest works and the one he called his ‘darling’. It shows one of the most famous ships of the age, a hero of Trafalgar, being towed up the Thames to the breakers’ yard, sail giving way to steam. Turner displayed this masterpiece to a public which, at the time, was deep in celebration of the Temeraire era, with work on Nelson’s Column underway, and it was an immediate success, with Thackeray calling the painting ‘a national ode’.

→ Play on BBC Sounds website

Guests

• Susan Foister 4 episodes
  Curator of Early Netherlandish, German and British Painting at the National Gallery
• David Blayney Brown No other episodes
  Manton Curator of British Art 1790-1850 at Tate Britain
• James Davey 2 episodes
  Curator of Naval History at the National Maritime Museum

Reading list

• Late Turner: Painting Set Free: exhibition catalogue
  David Blayney Brown, Amy Concannon and Sam Smiles (eds.) (Tate Britain, 2014)
• Trafalgar: The Men, the Battle, the Storm
  Tim Clayton and Phil Craig (Hodder, 2005) Google Books →
• In Nelson's Wake: The Navy and the Napoleonic Wars
  James Davey (Yale University Press, 2015) Google Books →
• Making and Meaning: The Fighting Temeraire: exhibition catalogue
  Judy Egerton (National Gallery, 1995)
• Nelson's Navy: The Ships, Men and Organisation 1793-1815
  Brian Lavery (Conway, 2013) Google Books →
• Building the Wooden Walls: The Design and Construction of the 74 Gun Ship Valiant
  Brian Lavery (Naval Institute Press, 1991) Google Books →
• Turner and the Sea
  Christine Riding and Richard Johns (eds.) (Thames and Hudson, 2013) Google Books →
• JMW Turner
  Sam Smiles (Tate Publishing, 2000)
• Turner
  Barry Venning (Phaidon Press, 2003) Google Books →
• Turner Inspired: In the Light of Claud: exhibition catalogue
  Ian Warrell (National Gallery, 2012) Google Books →
• The Fighting Temeraire: Legend of Trafalgar
  Sam Willis (Quercus, 2009) Google Books →
• British Warships in the Age of Sail, 1793-1817: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates
  Rif Winfield (Chatham, 2005) Google Books →

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Programme ID: b081r260

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/b081r260

Auto-category: 759.2 (British painting, 1800-1899)