Portrait of the Royal Navy's Brass

Naval Officers of World War I
by Sir Arthur Stockdale Cope
National Portrait Gallery
(8.7 ft x 16.9 ft)

Since we featured Royal Navy Seaman William Thomas yesterday, I thought today we might give attention to the Royal Navy's brass,  This massive oil  featuring twenty-two admirals involved in the First World War is from the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, which provides the following background information on the painting and—most helpfully—an identifying key of the individual admirals. The painting is displayed at 508px, but if you click on it or download it, the size is 1000px

About the Painting

The painting is set in the Admiralty Board Room at the Old Admiralty Office in Whitehall, London, and presents the twenty-two figures in a measured composition, some standing and some seated. The room retains many of the original features from 1725, the year in which the architect Thomas Ripley completed the Admiralty building, but the arrangement of the figures themselves is imagined. According to a contemporary naval correspondent, the significant, strategic problems of the late war would never have been deliberated over in this particular room. He stated that staff discussions and deliberations of this kind almost invariably took place in the room of the Chief or Deputy Chief of the Naval Staff, where the necessary charts and documents were made available. Indeed, he claims that some of the officers depicted had probably never even been inside the Board Room itself. This situation, therefore, like Sargent’s and Guthrie’s, could never have happened and had to be constructed almost entirely from the artist’s own mind.

In Cope’s painting, we can see an eighteenth-century wind dial on the wall behind the officers, surrounded by elaborate, limewood, carvings of nautical instruments. The dial was linked mechanically to a metal vane on the roof so the senior officers were always aware of the wind direction during their meetings. In addition to this, a full-length portrait of Lord Nelson by Leonardo Guzzardi hangs on the wall to the far left of the figures, in the same position it is in today. With these decorative elements and the knowledge that it was in this room that Nelson and other naval commanders’ dispatches were read, including that which told of the victory at Trafalgar and of Nelson’s death, this setting recalls distinct memories of the great naval encounters of the past.

Who's Left Out?

Members of the public at the time the painting was first exhibited were critical of the omission of certain distinguished officers. These include, specifically, Lord Fisher and Admiral Sir Henry Jackson, both of whom held the post of First Sea Lord during the war. It is unclear why Jackson was absent in the final work, although the reason could be that there was simply not enough room for additional figures. Fisher, however, is known to have been barely on speaking terms with anyone by 1918, after coming out of retirement at the request of Winston Churchill but then arguing with him bitterly and retiring again. He therefore refused to have anything to do with this particular project.

Identifying the Admirals

Click on Image to Enlarge